“What have I gotten myself into?” was a thought that has crossed my mind more than once since I announced my series on belly fat. My foremost concern has been not wanting to add to the hysteria about weight so prevalent in our culture. I was recently reading a very personal story that a dear woman wrote about being shapely, yes, but by no means slender. Despite the fact that she was given plenty of (often undesired) attention by males, she was convinced she was ugly and unattractive since her body was so unlike the “perfect” Hollywood models thrown at her by society. Her story struck a chord with many – those shapely and plus sized, those skinny and flat chested, and those in between. All could relate because they all struggled to accept their bodies as they were, and had a difficult time finding themselves attractive.
This is so sad, because there is such beauty in diversity. Yet most women in America (and elsewhere) feel the pressure to conform to a very specific look that is entirely culture driven.
So let me say once again, this series is not at all about appearances, conforming to unrealistic American ideals, or about shaming anyone about weight (on their stomach or elsewhere).
So why am I talking about it? I gave five reasons here for the series, the first; Belly fat can be a sign of disrupted health. What do I mean by that? Visceral adiposity (or fat inside the abdominal cavity, packed between the organs) is linked to a higher risk of a wide variety of diseases and disorders, including heart disease and cancer, diabetes, dementia, chronic inflammation, and metabolic syndrome. If we notice our weight piling up in the middle, it’s something to pay attention to simply as a clue to what is going on inside our body.
In other words, sometimes when we have excess belly fat, it is a physical signal of something else going on in our body. Plus, it’s possible that once we have excess belly fat, it creates its own problems.
I found this quote so interesting from an article on a study exploring the link between belly fat and dementia. “’The more we understand about adipose tissue, the clearer it becomes that belly fat is its own disease-generating organism,’ says Dr. Launer. ‘Your fat is a very active endocrine organ that has a life of its own,’Dr. Petanceska explains. As part of that life, it interacts with many other systems in the body. ‘How it interacts with the brain may profoundly inform us about brain aging and Alzheimer’s,’ she adds.”
It turns out that belly fat interacts with other systems of our body in harmful ways. The article goes on to say, “Belly fat churns out a host of hormones, including cortisol and glucocorticoids known as stress hormones, which normally increase with age as well as during stress and are believed to affect cognition. Many of the substances produced by adipose tissue, known as adipokines, serve as mediators of inflammation (i.e., cytokines). The white adipose tissue that makes belly fat secretes cytokines that fuel and maintain a state of chronic inflammation, which is harmful to the body and may be one of the ways by which belly fat can accelerate brain aging and cause brain dysfunction. “
Whether you want to protect your brain, or your body in general from stress hormones, examining why your body is placing weight around your middle can be a helpful consideration.
One very interesting link for me is the fact that those who end up gaining weight around their belly have a higher risk of diabetes, begging the question, was it the “belly fat” that helped you get diabetes, or was it the body dysfunction (or dietary or lifestyle choices) that gave you the belly fat, that eventually gave you the diabetes? It’s an interesting question to explore.
I think it’s important to acknowledge now that our bodies, complex and wonderfully made, don’t fit into neat little boxes. The reason one has blood sugar issues may or may not be related to lifestyle choices. While a large percentage of us will be powerfully affected by making better lifestyle choices, not all of us will see the results we expected from those choices.
There is a lot more to cover in regard to the “why we get belly fat”, but today I wanted to address the tie in with food. If you want to lose the pounds around the middle, what are effective ways to do that?
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