Research
Hormonal
Abdominal obesity, specifically visceral fat accumulation, is independently associated with metabolic disturbances and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, regardless of overall body mass index.
Focus on waist circumference, not just weight. If your waist is large (over 102 cm for men, 88 cm for women), you have higher visceral fat and metabolic risk, even if your BMI is normal. Measure your waist to assess true health risk.
StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
In particular an abdominal fat distribution is associated with metabolic disturbances and increased risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
Why this rating
Supported by numerous prospective studies, mechanistic data, and consistent epidemiological findings.
Source
What aspects of body fat are particularly hazardous and how do we measure them?
MB Snijder et al. · International Journal of Epidemiology · 2005
DOI 10.1093/ije/dyi253
narrative_reviewCited 594×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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