Skinny Fat: What Does It Mean? Causes, Risks & How to Fix It

Have you ever come across the term skinny fat? What does it mean when someone describes you as skinny fat? It’s not uncommon to find people whose outward appearance doesn’t match what is happening in their bodies.

The common notion is that one is unhealthy when excessive body fat translates to a higher BMI (Body Mass Index). But does it mean that having a fit and skinny body means you’re in good health?

This article explores the term skinny fat and what extra fat means. Having a skinny fat body doesn’t mean good health. However, you can still improve your body fat percentage even with a lean BMI.

What Is Skinny Fat?

Imagine a scenario where a person seems fit and well-toned, but still carries lots of visceral fat in their body.

Being skinny-fat means having a low muscle density in your body and lots of excess body fat despite being skinny.

What Does Skinny Fat Look Like?

When you look at this from the BMI perspective, you seem to have normal weight since it corresponds with your height. Any person who looks at you will assume you’re quite healthy because of your average weight and thin body.

But, underneath, you have a high body fat percentage that must go.

It’s known as MONW (Metabolically Obese Normal Weight) medically. The body fat or visceral fat isn’t visible, so you might seem skinny on the outside. The fat surrounds^[1] the body’s vital organs and can cause health issues. Skinny fat people hide fat mass in many areas not easily visible and are high risk.

Still, it’s worth noting that visceral fat isn’t the monster that it seems. At low levels, it’s an essential part of the body since it provides organs with protection. The body may also burn this fat to produce energy. But, the issue comes when there are excess amounts^[2] of subcutaneous fat in the body.

For example, having belly fat on the abdominal cavity, intestines, gall bladder, and pancreas is an indicator of obesity. This puts you at a high risk of getting health issues as time passes by. 

What Causes Most People To Be Considered Skinny Fat?

Having a skinny fat physique means you have a high body fat percentage and low skeletal muscle mass in your body.

This can be brought on by

Lots Of Visceral Fat In the Body

Gaining fat mass in the body is never good for your health. Even a person with belly fat needs to work on losing it. Often, the easiest way to know you have subcutaneous fat is to look at your belly area. Also, you can take measurements of your waist and belly.

Another measurement to consider is the hip and waist ratio. Take your waist measurement then your hip measurement. When you have the two readings, divide the waist by the hip measurement. This measurement is called the waist-to-hip ratio.

If the result is above 0.85, you have excess body fat as a woman. Anything above one means you have a high body fat percentage for healthy men.

But, the best way to measure the amount of visceral fat in your body is to get a CT scan. Still, this won’t be an easy thing to do since CT scans are quite costly. Not all hope is lost since you can still use a body composition analysis monitor available in many gyms. It’s pretty handy to measure body composition.

As a result, you get your body composition analyzed. Also, you get an accurate reading of the amount of subcutaneous fat or visceral fat in your body. Calculating visceral fat takes 10% of your subcutaneous fat percentage since 10% of your total body fat is visceral. 

Unhealthy Eating Habits

What do you like to eat and drink^[3] regularly? A walk through your daily diet can be quite an eye-opener. When you have poor eating and drinking habits, it’s easy for your body to accumulate body fat. While this might not be new information, it’s something to ponder.

Most people who ignore what they eat tend not to take in enough protein and don’t have a healthy weight. Your body needs enough protein to build muscle, but it’s more common to fill up on carbohydrates (carbs). High-carb meals cause the body to store^[4] much of the excess body fat and can lead to health problems.

Eating a diet that has too many refined carbohydrates with high cholesterol will promote body fat storage. These foods and drinks also have lots of processed sugars and fats, some of which may be trans fats, which can be quite harmful^[5].

Age

As you get older, your body composition changes, and you may lose muscle mass. It’s common for the human body to start burning^[6] skeletal muscle mass as you get older. At the same time, it starts to store a high percentage of body fat hence the fat gain that most people experience.

Considering your age, you may become skinny-fat. The body type is different and requires different strategies to reduce skinny fat. That way, you can start increasing skeletal muscle mass in the body.

Genetics

Many skinny fat people are that way because of their genes. The body composition you inherit^[7] determines many things about you, including health. This is all about the genetic disposition to a specific body type.

But, it’s best to state this isn’t set in stone. Despite having a genetic disposition to excessive fat, you can always change that body type. It’s all about balancing exercise and healthy eating habits to lose weight.

Stress

When you have daily stress, it’s easy to find comfort^[8] in food. This can lead to binge eating fast food and drinking sugary drinks. While fast food and sugary drinks can offer temporary relief, in the long run, you eat more calories.

Also, it’s not uncommon to suffer from a lack of sleep. When you don’t get enough sleep, this makes stress worse. Other side effects^[9] can include dry skin.

What Are The Risks Of Being Skinny Fat?

Being labeled as skinny fat has its challenges; that’s why you should always be aware of the visceral fat storage in your body composition. Excess amounts of visceral fat or body fat in your body can lead to health risks. Visceral fat is fat that develops in the abdominal cavity and wraps itself around our internal organs.

It’s not uncommon to find skinny fat people with heart disease and diabetes with excess insulin resistance.

In addition, you may get Alzheimer’s, high blood pressure^[10], metabolic syndrome, and certain cancers. All these are health risks, including diabetes and heart disease. The diseases are brought on by fat gain and high blood sugars in the body.

How To Get Rid Of Skinny Fat

Being in the skinny fat category requires speedy action^[11] to ensure your body composition has more muscle and a lower percent body fat. Failure to do so can lead to heart disease and other illnesses.

Thankfully, it’s possible to reduce body fat in the body, lower blood sugars, and build muscle mass. The best action to take is to embrace eating a balanced diet rich in protein and healthy weight training. This regimen also lowers the risk of getting medical issues like high blood pressure and diabetes.

• Having a meal rich in nutritious protein and low in carbs helps the body lose fat. In addition, you can include body fat-burning foods and drinks in your meals. This type of diet will help determine body composition and eliminate excess fat. So, to achieve weight loss include these foods in your meals
• Salmon
• Eggs
• Greek Yoghurt
• Dark chocolate (Use portion control)
• Broccoli
• Nuts (A serving is one ounce, watch portions)
• Green Tea
• Lean beef
• Avocado (high in healthy fats and calories, use portion control)
• Chicken

These are some of the foods^[12] to include in a diet that will help you achieve fat loss if consumed in appropriate portion sizes. It’s also crucial to remove processed carbohydrates and sugars from your daily diet. Avoid foods with excess fats, specifically trans fats,  that offer more calories and little healthy nutrition.

Skinny fat people need to change their complete lifestyle habits to achieve a healthy weight. It’s best to find out how much excess fat you have in your body. That way, you have an idea of how much body fat percentage needs to go, and you can come up with an excellent diet plan.

Along with healthy eating habits that cut calories, you also need to start cardiovascular exercises (cardio)  to have less skinny fat. This also means more strength training, which builds skeletal muscle mass and helps with fat loss. Doing specific workouts^[13] and cardio that help your body with muscle growth is the way to go. Skinny fat people don’t necessarily need to lose weight; they need to redistribute it and build muscle in place of fat.

But, ensure it’s practical so that you don’t spend hours in the gym with no visible muscle building. Strength training or weight training, specifically cardio with minimal weightlifting, is all about resistance. For this to work, you may need to work with equipment like

• Free weights- kettlebells and dumbbells
• Weight machines- stacks and pulleys
• Home gym systems, or weight benches

Why weight training? It’s because it’s among the best conventional weight loss advice.

You can create a training program or follow specific strength training combinations to elicit resistance using the three types of equipment. It’s best to come up with or speak with a trainer for an effective workout routine. This will involve using the equipment, reps, and sets to help muscle growth.

You can stop gaining fat mass and maintain muscle mass when this happens. This means your body will no longer be skinny fat, and you can achieve^[14] your target body weight. Plus, it’s a great way to increase the body’s metabolism bone density and improve body fat percentage.

Focusing on healthy nutrition and weight training program is the best way to turn from skinny fat to healthy weight. You get to burn the visceral fat and gain muscle mass by lifting weights. You may also boost the training by using fat-burning supplements.

But, make sure you come up with a healthy nutrition regimen. Going on an unhealthy diet can cause you more harm than good.

Apart from eating better and lifting weights, also make changes like reducing or stopping alcohol consumption. Research shows that consuming lots of alcohol can cause you to gain fat, specifically subcutaneous fat. So, it’s better to work on reducing the amount^[15] you drink or cutting it out of your daily diet.

Final Thought

Skinny fat means having lots of excess body fat, particularly visceral fat, and low muscle mass. In such instances, you appear to have a healthy outward appearance with a metabolically obese weight. But, your body carries a high percentage of excess body fat. When you have a high-fat mass in the body, it causes you to be susceptible to specific illnesses. These diseases can lead to early death. To prevent an early demise, you have to focus on what is causing the fat gain to implement lifestyle changes to lower the risk of falling ill.

Then create a lifestyle plan focusing on better eating habits and exercise habits, including cardio, to increase lean body mass. The goal is to significantly lower the high body fat percentage and build muscle mass. That’s how you can maintain optimal health.

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