Obesity: Why is the Apple Worse Off Than the Pear?

By: Kieu Huynh

Disclaimer: I’m not talking about the fruits, just the body shape and its respective characteristics.

From an American perspective, I can say without a doubt, that we are obsessed with fat, weight, and health. I mean… how can you not when you have a running stereotype of being morbidly obese? Or when nearly 40% of Americans (or 93 million) are obese?

Here’s the thing, there are some things that you can and cannot control. You can control to some degree your diet and your lifestyle, but you cannot control what your body decides to do with the nutrients you ingest. The latter is solely up to your genes.

So why are genetically pre-disposed “Apple-shaped” individuals worse off than their “Pear-shaped” counterparts? Note, when I say apple- and pear-shaped I’m referring to where fat is usually stored in these individuals.

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Fat Storage:

Following food consumption, your fat will be taken up by fat-specialized cells, called adipocytes, to be stored in adipose tissue, any excess fat will be taken up by adipocytes to be stored in adipose tissue, which can be found beneath the skin and around your internal organs.

If it helps just think of it like this:

• If you have fat, adipocytes will be produced to suck it all up for later use
• Adipocytes need to be housed in units known as adipose tissue

Everything should be good if our adipose tissue can expand accordingly to house all the adipocytes. But what happens when it can’t?

If you have too much fat, but nowhere to go, here’s what happens:

(1) Adipocytes will explode

Your adipose tissue may not be able to expand anymore, but nothing is inhibiting the production of adipocytes. So long as there is an influx of fat, you will have adipocyte production.

(2) Lipotoxicity (i.e. Toxic Fat)

If fat can’t be stored in adipose tissue, it will then start to leak out and be stored in other regions of the body. Often this ends up being other organs. Once this happens the fat will then cause the death of the local resident cells there.

Death is never good, and cell death is no exception. If given enough time, health issues that are often associated with obesity, like diabetes, insulin resistance, coronary heart disease, etc., begin to show up due to the cellular death and resulting dysfunction of your organs.

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Types of Fat:

Now that you know about fat storage in the body, here’s why fat stored in the abdominal region is so much worse than that stored in the hips and thighs.

So the two relevant types of fat here is subcutaneous and visceral.

• Subcutaneous (“Under the Skin Fat”)

This kind of fat is directly underneath your skin and is harder to burn off (or break down) than visceral fat.

• Visceral (“Active Fat”)

Visceral Fat is stored in regions deeper than your subcutaneous fat, it’s stored around organs.

“Apple-shaped” people have higher amounts and concentrations of visceral fat than “Pear-Shaped” people do. In addition, due to the proximity of visceral fat to our internal organs, if something goes wrong with your fat storage, it’d be so much easier for lipotoxicity to occur and consequently your negative health diseases.

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ALL IS NOT LOST:

Visceral Fat isn’t nicknamed “Active Fat” for no reason, it’s easier to break down than your subcutaneous fat. So, cue the usual healthy lifestyle message: HAVE A BETTER DIET AND GO EXERCISE! Think of it as giving your adipose tissue (The storage units) a good, and deep clean.

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References:

“Inflammation: Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome.” COGS 163: Metabolic Disorders. 2019.

Le, Trinh. “The Most Dangerous Fat Is the Easiest to Lose | Weight Loss | MyFitnessPal.” Under Armour, 18 Jan. 2018, blog.myfitnesspal.com/the-most-dangerous-fat-is-the-easiest-to-lose/.

Monteiro, Rosário, and Isabel Azevedo. “Chronic inflammation in obesity and the metabolic syndrome.” Mediators of inflammation 2010 (2010).