My body is inclined towards the ball belly. I really would rather that it was not. I dont like the look, it makes it hard to keep my pants seated where they are supposed to be, and it is less healthy.
Yep, it is less healthy. Fat can sit in two places, under the skin, and in the abdominal cavity. Many studies have concluded that a lot of the issues that are widely ascribed to being fat are actually mostly associated with how much fat you have in your abdominal cavity. One old theory on the why was that this fat pushed against your internal organs, more recently they have been claiming that for some reason this fat is more chemically active. I dont think they really understand the why behind this observation yet, but the correlation does seem pretty solid (much more so than the broader correlations between being overweight and getting diabetes, high blood pressure, etc). There are several bodies now suggesting that doctors move from checking BMI to simply measuring waist sizealthough this will not really check how much abdominal fat you have, you could just have a lot of under the skin fat rolling around your waist!
I suspect that this is mostly just one of those things, like colour of eyes or male pattern baldness, that you inherit and just have to live with. However, I was curious if anyone has either heard/read anything more in depth on this subject, or if anyone has heard anything suggesting that you can control whether fat goes in your belly or under the skin?
I know I for one would be more comfortable about my size, and in particular about the prospect of getting bigger, if I did not display this distribution.
Oh, and for what it is worth, apparently it seems to correlate somewhat with low good cholesterol levels, something that I also seem to have (have had them since at least my teens, and it seems to be genetic as this is widespread on my moms side of the family. The region of Finland that her father is from apparently has one of the highest rates of heart disease, even controlled for lifestyle, in the industrialized world). So just possibly the fat distribution is simply a symptom of some underlying issue, but even if that is the case Ive never really liked how that looked.
-Ed
Yep, it is less healthy. Fat can sit in two places, under the skin, and in the abdominal cavity. Many studies have concluded that a lot of the issues that are widely ascribed to being fat are actually mostly associated with how much fat you have in your abdominal cavity. One old theory on the why was that this fat pushed against your internal organs, more recently they have been claiming that for some reason this fat is more chemically active. I dont think they really understand the why behind this observation yet, but the correlation does seem pretty solid (much more so than the broader correlations between being overweight and getting diabetes, high blood pressure, etc). There are several bodies now suggesting that doctors move from checking BMI to simply measuring waist sizealthough this will not really check how much abdominal fat you have, you could just have a lot of under the skin fat rolling around your waist!
I suspect that this is mostly just one of those things, like colour of eyes or male pattern baldness, that you inherit and just have to live with. However, I was curious if anyone has either heard/read anything more in depth on this subject, or if anyone has heard anything suggesting that you can control whether fat goes in your belly or under the skin?
I know I for one would be more comfortable about my size, and in particular about the prospect of getting bigger, if I did not display this distribution.
Oh, and for what it is worth, apparently it seems to correlate somewhat with low good cholesterol levels, something that I also seem to have (have had them since at least my teens, and it seems to be genetic as this is widespread on my moms side of the family. The region of Finland that her father is from apparently has one of the highest rates of heart disease, even controlled for lifestyle, in the industrialized world). So just possibly the fat distribution is simply a symptom of some underlying issue, but even if that is the case Ive never really liked how that looked.
-Ed
