The Hidden Obesity of Skinny People

If you're overweight, then you no doubt envied those folks who could eat anything they want and still not gain a pound. They could eat a Chinese buffet out of business and still look good. As for you? You could get fat by just thinking of food! That one second thought of that Micky D's cheeseburger could put one pound on your thighs!
When I was a chubby kid, I would get jealous of kids who were skinny, who didn't have to worry about their image and being made fun of. What fat kid wouldn't envy those kids? Even as adults, we envy those "skinny minnies" who have never struggled with their weight, who could eat whatever they want, not exercise, and still fit into the same jeans that they wore in their middle school days.

However, skinny doesn't necessarily mean healthy. In fact, people who are skinny on the outside may be obese on the inside.

Fat cells love to hang out in one of two places: either underneath the skin or around your organs. Fat underneath the skin is called subcutaneous fat. People who are overweight or obese on the outside have fat primarily underneath their skin. Fat is supposed to be underneath the skin. Everybody has it, whether skinny or fat. It helps the body with insulation.

Then you have the fat that hangs around your organs, called visceral fat. Your organs naturally have fat around them to help with shock absorption. Since your organs move all around when you move, the fat keeps the organs well cushioned and reduces any friction caused by rubbing up against each other.

The annoying thing about fat is that it goes wherever it wants to. Some fat love to hang out in great numbers underneath the skin. Other fat cells love to party around the organs. Some fat like to congregate in great numbers in one part of the body, such as the breasts, butt, abdomen, and thighs. This would explain why some women who are particularly slender could have exceptionally large cup sizes, or why some men who seem overall lean could have a large gut.

With skinny people, their fat tend to hang out more on the inside than on the outside. So, that beautiful model you see on TV could possibly be carrying a lot of fat around her organs. Skinny folks usually think that because they can't seem to gain a pound that they are healthy, which would lead them to eat more and more of the unhealthy foods. Since they can't seem to get fat, they would think that it's okay to eat whatever they want.
Big mistake! All the fat and cholesterol that they are getting from their food is gathering around their heart, stomach, liver, kidneys, etc. If they were to take a bioelectrical impedance test, they might be quite surprised to see that they could be carrying a high percentage of fat in their body.

Technically, even if you are skinny, you could be considered overweight or obese if you have a high enough percentage of body fat on the inside. Thus, you would be exposed to the same risks that visibly overweight people have such as diabetes, heart attacks, high blood pressure, and stroke.

The dangers of being skinny is that it lets your guard down. Those who are overweight know that they have a problem because they could SEE it. Skinny people CAN'T see a problem, so they assume that they don't have one. They go to the hospital every year for a check-up and pass every time. They don't exercise, they don't gain any weight, the doctors tell them that they're healthy, so they don't see any problem.

What doctors can't always tell you is if you have hidden fat that could be potentially dangerous to your health without submitting you to a impedance test or a full-body MRI scan. If your blood pressure is good, blood work is good, and your overall physical appearance is good, then everything is good...or so we assume.

One parent made a good point concerning kids. It's not the obvious overweight kid that she's worried about. It's the skinny kid who eats everything he could get his hands on. The kid who is obviously fat is being watched closely by parents and doctors. As for the skinny kid? Nobody watches him because nobody thinks that he could have a hidden fat problem.

Also, high-fat foods have a lot of cholesterol, which could build up in the arteries. Whether you're overweight or skinny, everybody is at risk of cholesterol build-up in the arteries. Cholesterol is even more dangerous than that hidden fat because cholesterol likes to hang out inside your arteries, whether the arteries are around the heart or around the brain. And too much hanging out with the cholesterol would lead to heart attacks and strokes.

So, we see that no one is better than the other. Both skinny and overweight people are at risk for health problems caused by fat. The only difference with the two is that they both present their problems differently.

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