A whopping seven out of ten Americans are either overweight or obese! Belly fat is bulging across America (and the world) and it’s dragging several diseases along with it.
Belly fat is a combination of subcutaneous fat (the fat under your skin) and visceral fat, the fat that wraps around your internal organs. Visceral fat, in particular, has been linked to Metabolic Syndrome — MeS. This syndrome results from a combination of unhealthy life style choices that lead to problems such as insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and stroke. (See below)
People with belly fat have been derided as lacking willpower and ridiculed as having a spare tire, pot belly, beer belly and more recently a soda belly. Will power has become less of a factor in this belly pandemic.
Wikipedia Belly Fat Abdominal Obesity
A little more than two generations ago, sugar was primarily thought of as a condiment to flavor foods and drink. One put sugar in a cup of coffee, used it to bake cookies and cakes or to sprinkle it over fruit. Back then, most people ate breakfast and dinner almost exclusively at home. Diet soft drinks were not in the consumer’s consciousness.
Soft drinks and sugary additives are now world-wide. North Korea is the only country where Pepsi Cola is not sold. Food scientists tapped into the DNA reality that we are programmed towards sugar, salt and away from bitter and sour. Sugar has jumped from a condiment to account for approximately15% of our total calorie intake.
Of the thousands of items in a chain grocery store, it’s difficult to find a package food item or beverage without added sugar in some chemical form. This transformation was in no small part due to President Nixon’s directive in the early 1970’s to his Secretary of Agriculture to come up with cheap alternatives to real food.
Soda Belly. Studies show that over consumption of sugary drinks on a daily basis targets the abdomen and increases belly fat. Your overall body weight may be marginally affected, but excess belly fat is linked to Metabolic Syndrome and several diseases.
Think of the daily overindulgence of sugary products in the same way people overload their bodies with fast foods, cigarettes and alcohol (ethanol). This immoderation drains our pocketbooks and drains our health.
The unhealthy consequences creep up on us. It’s not one sugary or alcoholic drink that causes belly fat sickness. Rather, it’s the accumulation of the daily abuse to our bodies that multiply from hundreds to many thousands insults. There comes a time when the liver cannot take any more abuse and begins to deteriorate predisposing itself to fatty liver disease and the body suffers the consequences.
Researchers have come to the same conclusion: sugary drinks are not an acute health problem, but chronic consumption of these products causes sickness.
Today it seems that most of the world is overindulging in cheap, sugar-like products and belly fat is rising like yeast.
“Takeaways”
- Think of sugar in the same way as cigarettes and alcohol.
- Sugar and alcohol are carbohydrates
- Studies suggest sugar is addictive like alcohol
- Sugary drinks and alcohol are processed by the liver in a similar fashion.
- Belly fat is tethered to metabolic syndrome
- Too much daily consumption of sugary drinks and/or alcohol leads to belly fat, insulin resistance as well as elevated levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.
- Some of the ingredients in soda are table sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup (H.F.C.S). The former is composed of 50% fructose and the latter.is composed of 55% fructose.
- Table sugar and H.F.C.S. are virtually the same in their biochemical effects
- Fructose causes you to burn less calories and consume more food
- Fructose is a hepatotoxic (toxic to the liver) for the same reasons that alcohol is
- Sodas target the belly and causes accumulation of fat in the abdominal area
- Soda belly has overtaken beer belly as the main cause of belly fat.
Excess belly fat is an insidious health catastrophe that is not completely of our own doing. Artificial sweeteners, processed foods and sugary drinks are among the drivers of this pandemic. According to the World Health Organization, close to one third of the world population (1.9 billion) is overweight or obese.
In the United States, the CDC reports a huge 70.7% (seventy point seven percent) of Americans, 20 years of age or older, are overweight or obese!
There are no easy solutions to this belly outburst. But a first step might be to understand a calorie is not a calorie. Not all calories are processed by the body in the same manner. Also, think of sugar as a condiment, read food labels carefully, eat real food and occasionally drink sugary concoctions. It’s been said, “real food” has no labels.
Glossary
Belly fat is a combination of subcutaneous and visceral fat. Subcutaneous fat is superficial fat under your skin that you can grasp with your hand (arms or thighs stomach). Visceral fat — intra-abdominal fat, is deep body fat that wraps around internal organs such as the liver intestines and pancreas.
Pandemic is the worldwide spread of disease. Belly fat causes disease that has no regard for borders nor continents.
Metabolic Syndrome
According to the NIH, you must have ‘three of the five’ Risk Factors listed below to be diagnosed with Metabolic Syndrome.
- High blood pressure
- High fasting blood sugar, too much sugar in the blood (or you’re on medication to treat blood sugar)
- A large waistline. For men, a waist that measures greater than 40 inches around and for women greater than 35 inches around. This is also called abdominal obesity or having an “apple shape” abdomen.
- A high triglyceride level, means having too much fat in the blood (or you’re on medicine to treat high triglyceride).
- A low HDL cholesterol level (or if you’re on medication to treat low HDL). HDL is at times called “good or healthy” cholesterol.
References
Anticaglia, Joseph R; The Significance of Waist to Hip Ratio. Are You an Apple or a Pear?; HC Smart, 2017
Anticaglia, Joseph R; Metabolic Syndrome and Wellness Stay Off the Farm; HC Smart, 2016
Lustig, Robert; The Bitter Truth; UCTV. July 30, 2009
Fowler, Sharon MPH et al; Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Diet Soda Intake Is Associated with Long-Term Increases in Waist Circumference; March 17, 2015
NIH; Alcohol Metabolism; July 2007
Wikipedia; Abdominal Obesity; Photograph courtesy of Wikipedia
Guthrie, CD; et al; Alcohol as a Nutrient: Interaction between ethanol and carbohydrate;
Alcol Clin Exp Res; Feb 14, 1990
CDC; National Center for Health Statistics; Obesity and Overweight; June 13, 2016
WHO; Obesity and Overweight; June 2016
This article is intended solely as a learning experience. Please consult your physician for diagnostic and treatment options.