The word "fat" gets thrown around a lot these days, and it is seldom mentioned in a friendly manner.
That's a little sad, especially if you are interested in being healthy, because there are several different "fats" and knowing your way around them can have a strong impact on your fitness efforts and goals.
Discussing fat can take you in several different directions... some of them pretty complicated. However, here I simply want to clear up a bit of confusion that most people have about "fat". The actual meaning of the word depends on the topic under discussion but most people just lump all meanings into an evil, amorphous mass and make the sign of the cross as if warding off vampires.
First of all, let's make it clear that "fat" is often actually a good thing, and just to shun it based on hearsay is not a smart move.
I am reminded of a time years ago when I in-processed new employees for a major national company. Many of the people I worked with were experienced in the industry and most arrived with certain predetermined attitudes about what they would find with us.
Most of them were surprised.
In fact, after orientation was over, one new employee came up to me and said, "I have been in this industry for nearly 30 years and when I first started, I heard bad things about this company and for all that time, I have just been repeating what I had heard. Now I know that it is not like that at all, and I am going to make more money here and like my job better than I ever have."
... And he did.
Fat is like that. People have heard something about it, like "it's bad for you", and they just assume it's the truth, never realizing that they have been misled. That's easy to do since the three fats I am going to talk about are somewhat similar and related and are easy to confuse if you are not an expert, or at least a student, of health and nutrition.
Let's start with "the ugly" fat.
This is body fat. It is generally subcutaneous. That is, it lies under the skin. I call it "the ugly" fat because most people really don't like it because it makes them look... well... fat!
It can be "bad" for you if it is in excess, but body fat per se is not evil. Some fat is needed for health and is involved in the proper performance of many actions in the body. Without some body fat, our health would suffer. Excess body fat is generally the result of an imbalance between the calories we take in and the calories we use. This is why controlling excess body fat usually involves exercise and nutritionally balanced food intake.
Excess body fat can contribute to diabetes, heart disease, joint ailments, high blood pressure, premature aging, and even death. However, not to beat a dead horse, but we DO NEED some body fat to be healthy.
Now, let's talk about "the good" fat.
This is dietary fat.
It may surprise you to learn, after all you have read and heard about losing weight and the obesity problem in the U.S. and other countries that dietary fat, i.e. the fat in foods "can" be good for you.
I am not going to get into a discussion of transfats and so on, as that goes off in another direction. However, there are fats which are not as good for you as other fats. In the long run, however, most health issues come back to the maintenance of a healthy lifestyle which includes regular exercise and healthy eating habits. Even the negative effects of a diet high in unhealthy fats, or just fat in general, can be offset to a great degree by activity and selection of other foods that help offset the ill-effects of any fat.
I call this "the good" fat because dietary fat provides energy, supplies certain substances crucial to health, helps with the absorption and use of some necessary nutrients, and can help you feel full so that you are less likely to overeat.
Again, this whole area is a study in itself, and I will leave it here. Remember, the problem with dietary fats does not lie as much in the area of the fat itself, but the amount of fat and the lifestyle into which it is introduced.
Finally, "the bad" fat.
This is what is referred to as "visceral fat" and "abdominal fat". This is slightly misleading as abdominal fat can be both subcutaneous, under the skin, and visceral, within the abdominal cavity itself.
Visceral fat, also mostly the result of lifestyle, but affected by age, sex, heredity and other factors, can be even more deadly than excess body fat. While any body fat cell is actually a small factory pumping out various hormones and other substances, many of which are not good for our health, visceral fat is really bad. Just a few of the detrimental effects of visceral fat are increased risk of heart disease, colorectal cancer, high blood pressure, bad memory, and less verbal fluency.
The good news is that all fats in or on the body react well to exercise and proper nutrition. In fact, some studies have found that regular exercise and proper nutrition can produce huge health improvements even with little fat loss.
I hope that after this little discussion you understand fats a bit more.
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