People who regularly eat and drink more calories than they burn each day are more likely to gain extra weight, including belly fat. Getting older also makes a difference. People lose muscle as they age. And the problem is worse for those who are not physically active.

Loss of muscle mass decreases how quickly the body uses calories. That can make it more challenging to maintain a healthy weight. Many women notice an increase in belly fat as they get older even if they don't gain weight.

This is likely due to a lower level of estrogen because estrogen seems to have an effect on where fat is located in the body. Genes can contribute to an individual's chances of being overweight or obese too. It also plays a role in where the body stores fat. Subcutaneous fat is belly fat you can feel if you pinch extra skin and tissue around your middle.

Visceral fat is fat that builds up deep within the abdomen in the space around the organs. Too much visceral fat is strongly linked with a higher risk of serious health problems. The trouble with belly fat is that it's not limited to the layer of padding just below the skin.

That's called subcutaneous fat. Belly fat also includes visceral fat. And that lies deep inside the abdomen and surrounds the internal organs. For women, a waist measurement of more than 35 inches 89 centimeters signals an unhealthy amount of belly fat and a greater risk of health problems.

In general, though, the greater the waist measurement, the higher the health risks. You can strengthen and tone abdominal muscles with crunches or other exercises focused on your belly. But doing those exercises alone won't get rid of belly fat. The good news is that visceral fat responds to the same diet and exercise strategies that can help get rid of other extra pounds and lower total body fat.

Try these tips:. Losing belly fat takes effort and patience. To lose extra fat and keep it from coming back, aim for slow and steady weight loss. Ask your health care provider for help getting started and staying on track. There is a problem with information submitted for this request.

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Belly fat in women: Taking — and keeping — it off What does your waistline say about your health? By Mayo Clinic Staff. Enlarge image Belly fat Close. Belly fat Subcutaneous fat is belly fat you can feel if you pinch extra skin and tissue around your middle. Thank you for subscribing!

Sorry something went wrong with your subscription Please, try again in a couple of minutes Retry. Show references Perreault L. Obesity in adults: Prevalence, screening, and evaluation.

Accessed Feb. Perreault L, et al. Overweight and obesity in adults: Health consequences. Understanding adult overweight and obesity. When it comes to body fat, location counts, and each year brings new evidence that the fat lying deep within the abdomen is more perilous than the fat you can pinch with your fingers.

If you poke your belly, the fat that feels soft is subcutaneous fat. It's found in the spaces surrounding the liver, intestines, and other organs.

It's also stored in the omentum, an apron-like flap of tissue that lies under the belly muscles and blankets the intestines. The omentum gets harder and thicker as it fills with fat.

Although visceral fat makes up only a small proportion of body fat, it's a key player in a variety of health problems. As women go through their middle years, their proportion of fat to body weight tends to increase — more than it does in men — and fat storage begins favoring the upper body over the hips and thighs.

Even if you don't actually gain weight, your waistline can grow by inches as visceral fat pushes out against the abdominal wall. Visceral fat lies in the spaces between the abdominal organs and in an apron of tissue called the omentum.

Subcutaneous fat is located between the skin and the outer abdominal wall. Body fat, or adipose tissue, was once regarded as little more than a storage depot for fat blobs waiting passively to be used for energy. But research has shown that fat cells — particularly visceral fat cells — are biologically active.

One of the most important developments [since the mids] is the realization that the fat cell is an endocrine organ, secreting hormones and other molecules that have far-reaching effects on other tissues.

Before researchers recognized that fat acts as an endocrine gland, they thought that the main risk of visceral fat was influencing the production of cholesterol by releasing free fatty acids into the bloodstream and liver.

We now know that there's far more to the story. Researchers have identified a host of chemicals that link visceral fat to a surprisingly wide variety of diseases. Subcutaneous fat produces a higher proportion of beneficial molecules, and visceral fat a higher proportion of molecules with potentially deleterious health effects.

Visceral fat makes more of the proteins called cytokines, which can trigger low-level inflammation, a risk factor for heart disease and other chronic conditions. It also produces a precursor to angiotensin, a protein that causes blood vessels to constrict and blood pressure to rise.

A tape measure is your best home option for keeping tabs on visceral fat. Measure your waistline at the level of the navel — not at the narrowest part of the torso — and always measure in the same place. According to official guidelines, the bottom of the tape measure should be level with the top of the right hip bone, or ilium — see the illustration — at the point where the ilium intersects a line dropped vertically from the center of the armpit.

Don't suck in your gut or pull the tape tight enough to compress the area. In women, a waist circumference of 35 inches or larger is generally considered a sign of excess visceral fat, but that may not apply if your overall body size is large. Rather than focus on a single reading or absolute cut-off, keep an eye on whether your waist is growing are your pants getting snug at the waist?

That should give you a good idea of whether you're gaining unhealthy visceral fat. Visceral fat can be measured in a variety of ways. CT scans and full-body MRIs are the most precise, but they are expensive and rarely available, so investigators often use estimates based on waist circumference or waist size in proportion to height see "Gut check".

To ensure that they're not just measuring overall obesity, researchers also check whether a person's waist circumference is higher than average for her or his body mass index BMI.

Cardiovascular disease. Several studies have documented this effect. For example, a large study of European women ages 45 to 79 concluded that those with the biggest waists and those with the largest waists in relation to their hip size had more than double the risk of developing heart disease.

The risk was still nearly double even after adjustment for several other risk factors, including blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking, and BMI.

Higher visceral-fat volume also has a deleterious impact on several other heart disease risk factors. It's associated with higher blood pressure, blood sugar levels and triglyceride levels, and lower levels of HDL good cholesterol. Taken together, these changes, known as metabolic syndrome, create a serious risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Researchers at Kaiser Permanente found that people in their early 40s with the highest levels of abdominal fat, compared with those who had the least abdominal fat at that age, were nearly three times more likely to develop dementia including Alzheimer's disease by their mids to early 80s.

Dementia was not associated with increased thigh size. The risks were highest for women who were both large-waisted and overweight or obese. The investigators believe that belly fat raises the risk of asthma more than other poundage because it has inflammatory effects throughout the body, including in the airways.

Breast cancer. A combined analysis of several studies found that premenopausal women with abdominal obesity the largest waist size in proportion to their height were at greater risk for breast cancer.

Large waists were also linked to breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women, but that effect was not significant once BMI was taken into account. Colorectal cancer. People with the most visceral fat have three times the risk of developing colorectal adenomas precancerous polyps than those with the least visceral fat.

The relationship was found after many other risks were accounted for. The researchers also confirmed that adenomatous polyps in the colon are associated with insulin resistance, which may be the mechanism that increases the cancer risk.

Where you tend to gain fat depends on your genes, your hormones, your age, your birth weight smaller babies more readily add belly fat later in life , and whether you've had children women who have given birth tend to develop more visceral fat than women who haven't. As young adults, women on average have less visceral fat than men, but that changes with menopause.

You can't change your birth weight or your genes, and you can't hold off menopause. But there are several ways you can minimize the accumulation of visceral fat. The good news is that because it's more readily metabolized into fatty acids, it responds more efficiently to diet and exercise than fat on the hips and thighs.

Here are some approaches that may help:. Keep moving. Exercise can help reduce your waist circumference. Even if you don't lose weight, you lose visceral belly fat and gain muscle mass.

Engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity most days, such as brisk walking or bicycling at a casual pace. Also create opportunities to add motion to routine tasks. For example, park farther from your destination and walk the rest of the way, take the stairs instead of the elevator, and stand while you talk on the phone.

Studies have shown that you can help trim visceral fat or prevent its growth with both aerobic activity such as brisk walking and strength training exercising with weights.

Spot exercises, such as sit-ups, can tighten abdominal muscles but won't get at visceral fat. Exercise can also help keep fat from coming back. Eat right. Choose a balanced diet that helps you achieve and maintain a healthy weight. Avoid products that seem to encourage belly fat deposition, especially simple sugars like fructose-sweetened foods and beverages.