Fact check
How Much Body Fat is Healthy?
60 percent of body weight is genetically determined.
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Body fat – everyone has it, but mostly wants to get rid of it. Doctors warn in an interview: "Too little fat is also not healthy."
Body fat is a mostly uninvited guest in the mirror and on the scales. But the tissue, which is one of the largest of our organs, is underestimated in many ways. The experts Prof. Liesbeth van Rossum and Dr. Mariëtte Boon enlighten. The two authors of the book "Fat. The Secret Organ" explain in an interview with the news agency spot on news when to speak of a healthy body fat percentage, why some people are more prone to obesity than others and how healthy the fasting period actually is for the body .
How much body fat is considered healthy?
A common measure for estimating the percentage of body fat is the body mass index (BMI). This is calculated by dividing your own weight (in kilograms) by your height (in meters) squared. A BMI between 18.5 and 25 is considered healthy, between 25 and 30 as overweight and over 30 as obese. However, the BMI does not always reflect the amount of fat. For example, a bodybuilder may have an increased BMI due to having a lot of muscle mass. In addition, the BMI does not say anything about where the excess fat is.
To get an impression of the fat distribution, a measurement of the waist circumference can be used. For men, a waist circumference over 94 centimeters is considered overweight and over 102 centimeters as obese. For women, these values are 80 centimeters and 88 centimeters. If you measure the body fat percentage with special scales, values over 20 percent are considered too high for men, and over 30 percent for women. But too little fat is not healthy either. When young women have less than 17 percent fat, the menstrual cycle often comes to a standstill and fertility is impaired.
Why are some people more likely to be overweight than others?
What many people don't know is that around 60 percent of their body weight is genetically determined. If you think about the genes that influence the feeling of hunger and satiety, for example, the rewards that some experience after eating, the metabolism, the intestinal bacteria, how sensitive some people are to the metabolic effects of stress … If all of these Systems where one or the other work a little less well, they are more likely to have a higher body weight. This is the main reason why some people are more likely to become overweight or obese than others.
Why can body fat be lost more quickly in some areas than in others?
Unfortunately, anyone who wants to lose weight cannot influence the location of fat loss. Fat can settle in different places on our body, but it usually fixes in and on the abdomen or on the hips and buttocks. The preferred location for fat is partly genetic and is also influenced by sex hormones and, for example, the stress hormone cortisol.
In pre-menopausal women, the fat is preferentially deposited on the hips due to the high levels of estrogen. After menopause, the level of estrogen drops and the fat also begins to settle on the stomach. It's different with men. Your high testosterone level initially protects you from belly fat, if this decreases with age, the fat also begins to accumulate on the belly.
What's the Best Way to Get Rid of Unwanted Body Fat Permanently?
In general, if you are slightly overweight, it is important to eat healthily, exercise regularly, get enough sleep and take more time to relax when you are stressed. If you are very overweight, the best first step is to find out what type of obesity you are suffering from. There are six categories of causes, with lifestyle-related factors including unhealthy diet, little exercise, lack of sleep or too much alcohol being the most common.
The preferred initial treatment for obesity is combined lifestyle intervention, a long-term, intensive treatment program that provides those affected with guidance on diet, physical activity, and behavior change. It is good to know that if you are overweight, lifestyle changes are usually enough to shed the extra pounds. If these do not lead to weight loss, it is sometimes necessary to use weight loss medication or to have bariatric surgery.
Many people use Lent to lose weight by radically avoiding food. How healthy is this method for the body?
Simply leaving out certain food categories is not an effective weight loss strategy. For long-term weight loss, it is recommended to eat healthy and especially unprocessed foods. This includes eating several servings of vegetables and fruits, legumes, a handful of nuts, fatty fish once a week, always using whole grain products, consuming some dairy products every day and drinking water, tea or coffee and no sugary drinks or beverages Alcohol.