Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 19, 1990 TAG: 9005190073
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But that was then and this is now, and looking at the ample flesh, the dimples, ripples, rolls and bulges, we're more likely to see: Fat.
A cosmetic disaster for many moderns, it is also associated with heart disease, diabetes, gallstones, hypertension, certain kinds of cancer, the wear-and-tear seen in osteoarthritis, the choking snores of nighttime oxygen deprivation.
In most of us, fatness translates to overweight, but the terms are not exactly the same.
Lean, healthy athletes and body-builders can put on enough muscle mass to tip the scales at something over the charted ideal developed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, while narrow, little guys with skinny shoulders and spindly legs could be carrying excess fat at the mid-section.
In fact, it is the ratio of fat to lean that scientists now recognize as a more important indication of disease risk than weight alone. It is recommended that men under age 30 carry no more than 13 percent of their body weight in fat; women, designed by nature to conserve more calories, can carry up to 18 percent. As people age, body weight and percentage of body fat generally increase, and recent studies have indicated that the change is not necessarily unhealthy.
"It's very clear, in men and women, that body weight . . . associated with the lowest mortality gets bigger and bigger as you get older and older," says Dr. Reubin Andres, clinical director of the National Institute on Aging.
Andres does not advocate obesity. The charted ideal, he believes, is probably too heavy for people under 40. But after that, most of us pick up a pound or so a year. And even if we maintain a constant weight through old age, our percent of body fat will increase. "You will, in fact, be getting fatter, because muscle atrophies," Andres says.
Most of the time, body fat percentage is calculated after pinching inches of subcutaneous fat with an instrument called a caliper. These numbers are useful enough, though they're not exact. They do not, for instance, tell you anything about your internal fat; and they can vary, depending on where on the body, and how tightly, the tester pinches.
For a more precise determination, researchers use an underwater weighing method. Fat floats; you're lighter inside the weighing tank than on dry land. The greater the difference, the fatter you are.
On your own, you can also get an idea of your fat content: Stand naked in front of a full-length mirror. Jump up and down. If you see a lot of jiggle, you're seeing at a lot of fat.
"Look at fat cells as little bags of fat," suggests Dr. Rudolph Leibel, an American Heart Association researcher and associate professor at Rockefeller University. "Women probably have more cells than men in some regions, notably the hips and thighs, while abdominal fat in men is probably due, in many instances, not to having more fat cells but to making the little bags bigger."
Where overall fat cell deposits are concerned, weight control experts believe an excess number of cells is a result of heredity and overeating in childhood; the relative importance of those two factors is a matter of debate. Overeating at any time of life can cause overfilling of the existing fat cells.
"In the fat third grader, there is undoubtedly a genetic component that predisposes to high insulin, insulin resistance and disrupted glucocorticoid rhythm; it's not the child's fault," said Thomas Castonguay, associate professor of nutrition at the University of Maryland College Park.
"But the person who has gone through life until age 35 and then develops a pot belly, there's a certain amount of responsibility we have to take for that."
In terms of heart health, however, jodhpur thighs are not important; wide-bellied construction appears to be more hazardous. And Leibel's research targets a very particular area of the abdomen:
"The impact appears to be the result of the deposition of large amounts of fat not under the skin but inside the abdominal cavity," he says. "The blood supply from that fat drains directly into the liver and probably affects production of the particles that carry cholesterol into the blood."
That is not where it will wiggle as you walk or get grabbed by calipers. But it does push your belly outward, and you can therefore calculate your risk.
"Measure your waist in the area of the umbilicus - the belly button - and then measure the girth of your hips, at the widest point of the buttocks," advises Dr. Neil Gordon, director of exercise physiology at the Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas. "Divide your waist measurement by your hip measurement; it should be less than .85. The lower the waist-to-hip ratio, the better off you are."
The hourglass figure, or even the pear shape, typically seen in women, will yield a lower ratio than the balloon-in-the-middle in men.
That does not mean you're home free, no matter what your weight, so long as your hips stay bigger than your waist: general body fat is a risk factor, warns Leibel: "The intra-abdominal depot confers extra risk."
Although numerous studies have established an association between body fat or dietary fat, and increased risk of colorectal cancer, prostate cancer and post-menopausal breast cancer, the nature of that relationship is more difficult to determine.
"It's possible that whatever is responsible for the obesity is responsible for the cancer; it doesn't mean if you avoid obesity you will avoid cancer," says Dr. Paul Talalay, professor of molecular pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
by CNB