Congratulations, we have another thing to worry about—at least in the health and fitness field.
Kids, welcome to "skinny fat."
There are some people out there whose ridiculously fast metabolisms prevent them from gaining any weight. They never exercise and they're always the first in line for cake seconds. Annoying, right? Don't be envious of those people—their internal organs are suffering like crazy! See Skinny Minny over there chomping down on donuts? She's actually building up dangerous fats inside her body. In the science field, this is called visceral fat. In the vindictive b*tch world, this is called "skinny fat."
Visceral fat is caused by eating high fat and sugar foods (like cake and donuts) and is the most dangerous. It wraps around your inner organs and increases your risk of nasty issues like diabetes, heart disease, stroke and dementia. It's visible in belly fat, but yet—not everyone displays it clearly.
The problem is, people are super fixated on their BMI (body mass index), but it fails to tell the full story. All it really does it take your height and weight and do some funky number crunching to give you an arbitrary score. People who are ultra muscular may have an unreasonably high BMI because muscle is denser than fat. On the flipside, a person can be thin and small boned but still carry an unhealthy amount of visceral fat.
What should you take away from all of this? For the love of Richard Simmons, work out and eat well. Like, all the time. The scale and your BMI only tell part of the story.
Image: Watch your habits as well as your waist. Courtesy of Pixabay
