Shape Magazine
Facts about Fat
Good Fat Vs. Bad Fat
You might think that the fatter you are, the more unhealthy you're likely to be. Not necessarily true, because what really matters is location. The type of fat that's dangerous, i.e. visceral fat, is packed in a small region around your liver and other abdominal organs. "You can't feel it, touch it or see it," says Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D., director of the kinesiology program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and author of Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health (Guerze Books, 2002). "It doesn't comprise a whole lot of total body fat. The average woman has 40-50 pounds of fat, but of that, only about 5-10 pounds is intra-abdominal fat." Although the only way to know exactly how much you carry around is via high-tech methods like a CAT scan or MRI, you can get an idea of whether you have too much by measuring your waist circumference, Gaesser says. More than 35 inches for women is considered high risk (see "The Easiest Way to Gauge Your Risk," below right).
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