Belly fat isn't always bad. New study finds how to improve healthy belly fat
Regular exercise led to healthier belly fat in people with obesity, research in Nature Metabolism finds. People exercised four times a week for several years.
Belly fat tends to get a bad rap, but new research shows that one kind of belly fat can be healthier than others — provided you’re willing to get moving.
“Fat is really misunderstood,” said Jeffrey Horowitz, a professor of exercise physiology in the University of Michigan School of Kinesiology. “The fat we have, especially that which is stored under our skin, is a really important place to store our energy.”
In a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Metabolism, Horowitz and his team found that people with obesity who get regular aerobic exercise have healthier belly fat tissue — specifically, that subcutaneous fat stored just beneath the skin — than nonexercisers with obesity.
The fat, the study found, essentially behaved differently in people with the same percentage of body fat, based on their long-term exercise habits.
Horowitz and his team recruited 32 people (half male, half female) who were overweight or had obesity. Sixteen had exercised at least four times a week for at least two years — the average amount of regular exercise was actually 11 years — while the others lived more sedentary lives. Each person was matched for age, biological sex, body fat percentage and body mass index, or BMI.
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