DIET: Thin people may be fat inside

[FSUNolesZ]

LONDON - If it really is what's on the inside that counts, then a lot of thin people might be in trouble. Some doctors now think that the internal fat surrounding vital organs like the heart, liver or pancreas ? invisible to the naked eye ? could be as dangerous as the more obvious external fat that bulges underneath the skin

"Being thin doesn't automatically mean you're not fat," said Dr. Jimmy Bell, a professor of molecular imaging at Imperial College, London. Since 1994, Bell and his team have scanned nearly 800 people with MRI machines to create "fat maps" showing where people store fat.

According to the data, people who maintain their weight through diet rather than exercise are likely to have major deposits of internal fat, even if they are otherwise slim. "The whole concept of being fat needs to be redefined," said Bell, whose research is funded by Britain's Medical Research Council.

Without a clear warning signal ? like a rounder middle ? doctors worry that thin people may be lulled into falsely assuming that because they're not overweight, they're healthy.

"Just because someone is lean doesn't make them immune to diabetes or other risk factors for heart disease," said Dr. Louis Teichholz, chief of cardiology at Hackensack Hospital in New Jersey, who was not involved in Bell's research.

Even people with normal Body Mass Index scores ? a standard obesity measure that divides your weight by the square of your height ? can have surprising levels of fat deposits inside.

Of the women scanned by Bell and his colleagues, as many as 45 percent of those with normal BMI scores (20 to 25) actually had excessive levels of internal fat. Among men, the percentage was nearly 60 percent.

Relating the news to what Bell calls "TOFIs" ? people who are "thin outside, fat inside" ? is rarely uneventful. "The thinner people are, the bigger the surprise," he said, adding the researchers even found TOFIs among people who are professional models.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070510/...5UsboaDTUDW7oF

[KryptoKnight]

Without a clear warning signal ? like a rounder middle ? doctors worry that thin people may be lulled into falsely assuming that because they're not overweight, they're healthy.

So true that a lot of people who aren't fat think that they're "healthy".

[rondertaker]

this article speaks to the misconceptions the majority of people have about the way the body works. for my whole life i have been very unhealthy (high bf%) but not very visibly overweight (unless i took my shirt off or something). when people find out i am dieting/working out, they say things like "why? you're skinny!" and i have to try to explain these concepts to them - that i was basically a bunch of fat in the shape of a skinny guy

[KryptoKnight]

this article speaks to the misconceptions the majority of people have about the way the body works. for my whole life i have been very unhealthy (high bf%) but not very visibly overweight (unless i took my shirt off or something). when people find out i am dieting/working out, they say things like "why? you're skinny!" and i have to try to explain these concepts to them - that i was basically a bunch of fat in the shape of a skinny guy

Haha that's so true. Even when I bulk and I tell people i'm trying to lose weight, they ask me why? Especially my girlfriend, she doesn't understand that when I tell her I'm FAT (even though not VISIBLY), she tries to make me feel better by saying I don't need to lose weight.

[TheKansan]

Its funny when you have a 300 pound guy with 20% body fat, and a 180 pound guy with 25% body fat and trying to explain to the general public that the 180 pound guy is fatter than the 300 pound guy.

[FSUNolesZ]

I know some skinny fat kids.....and they're all burnouts

[Swaggydoo]

I know loads of people like that, they might be stick thin etc, but theyre very unfit, and eat like crap.