Not all fat is created equal. So when your members turn to you for advice on how to get the bodies they want, help them figure out how to find the fat they really want to shed.
Most, if not all, fitness club clients now recognize that high body fat percentages are associated with increased health risks. Your chances of heart disease, stroke and diabetes increase significantly with high body fat. However, studies show that the location and distribution of body fat plays an important role in determining overall health risk. Conventional caliper techniques measure subcutaneous body fat and then use formulas to calculate the total body fat based on large study statistics. Unfortunately, visceral fat, which is located within the body cavity and surrounding organs, is not directly measured. Yet the amount of visceral fat is considered to have the highest correlation with health risks. Ideally, visceral fat measurements should be part of any regular fitness assessment. Unfortunately, technologies which can accurately measure visceral fat such as X-ray CT, MRI and imaging ultrasound are either too expensive or unsafe for routine and regular measurements in a fitness club environment.
One alternative is to make accurate measurements of the abdominal fat. The subcutaneous fat in the abdominal area can be divided into a superficial (SL) and deep layer (DL) fats that are separated by fascia. The rationale for this division initially came from animal studies which indicate that lipids are depleted and deposited at a faster rate into the deep layer of the subcutaneous tissue than into the superficial layer. This suggests that the superficial layer acts as thermal insulation layer or a storage layer, whereas the deep layer functions as a metabolically active tissue. Preliminary studies have shown that the deep abdominal fat layer thickness is strongly related to insulin resistance in both lean and obese men and women. These studies suggest total abdominal fat measurements should show higher correlation to visceral fat and disease. Furthermore, they suggest that direct measurements of the deep layer should show even better correlation.
Simple waist to hip ratio measurements continue to be an effective way to show correlation with risk for obesity-related and other health conditions. The most likely reason for this effectiveness is that these measurements include a direct measurement of the abdominal fat layer. Of the existing low cost and safe technologies, ultrasound offers the best potential for a direct measurement of the abdominal deep fat layer. Ultrasound has the ability to detect the subcutaneous fascia layer and the interface between the deep layer and muscle. Consequently, using simple A-mode ultrasound, a direct measurement of the deep layer thickness can be made. Although additional long term studies are required to validate this approach as a method to assess health risks, preliminary studies suggest that this could ultimately replace calipers and conventional percentage body fat measurements for fitness and health assessments.
Luiz Da Silva, PhD is the CTO of IntelaMetrix, Inc. He can be contacted at 877/838-9918, or by email at ldasilva@intelametrix.com .
