Abdominal and Visceral Fat: The Foods That Can Promote Fat Accumulation and How to Reduce Your Risk
Abdominal fat is one of the most common concerns for people trying to improve their health, but not all abdominal fat is the same. The fat that sits directly underneath the skin is known as subcutaneous fat, while the fat stored deeper inside the abdominal cavity around organs is called visceral fat.
Visceral fat deserves particular attention because excessive amounts are associated with a higher risk of metabolic problems, including insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, fatty liver disease, and abnormal cholesterol levels. However, it is important to understand how this fat actually develops.
A common misconception is that visceral fat forms because the liver becomes overloaded with fat and then somehow “spills” that fat around the heart, pancreas, intestines, and gallbladder. The human body does not work quite that way.
Instead, visceral fat develops primarily when the body receives more energy than it needs over time, combined with genetic, hormonal, metabolic, lifestyle, sleep, and physical-activity factors. When excess energy is stored as body fat, some of that fat can accumulate around internal organs. At the same time, excess calories—especially when coming from highly processed foods, sugary drinks, and large amounts of refined carbohydrates or unhealthy fats—can contribute to fat accumulation in the liver.
This means that reducing visceral fat is not about eliminating one mysterious “toxic” ingredient. It is about improving the overall quality of the diet, controlling excessive calorie intake, maintaining regular physical activity, getting adequate sleep, and developing sustainable eating habits.
Below are several categories of foods that are particularly important to limit if your goal is to reduce excess abdominal and visceral fat.
1. Foods Containing Industrial Trans Fats
Trans fats are among the dietary fats with the strongest evidence for adverse effects on cardiovascular health.
Industrial trans fats were historically produced by partially hydrogenating liquid vegetable oils, a process that made oils more solid and increased their stability and shelf life. They were commonly used in certain margarines, commercial baked goods, fried foods, shortening, and processed snacks.
It is important, however, to make a distinction between trans fats and ordinary vegetable oils.
Soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, sunflower oil, and other vegetable oils are not automatically trans fats simply because they are processed or because they contain omega-6 fatty acids. Calling all of these oils “trans fats” is scientifically incorrect.
