There it is in living color: BELLY FAT. Please…say it isn’t true. Desperate to find an authentic article I could trust, I came across the Mayo Clinic website.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/medical/IM03913

Most everything else that has to do with older women and weight gain is trying to sell products: colon cleanses, tonics, supplements…I know. I inhabited that world for many years…and now I’m a fully-converted skeptic.

Here’s the skinny (oops): This visceral fat, aka “belly fat” accumulates in our abdomens (bellies, ladies), between our organs. Subcutaneous fat, on the other hand, is the fat you can feel if you pinch some skin and tissue around your middle. It’s the invisible fat, the visceral fat, that puts us at greater risk of disease, such as heart disease, breast cancer (been there, done that) and diabetes—more than does excess subcutaneous fat.

As we age and our metabolism slows down, the amount of fat in our bodies slowly increases. Here’s the kicker: Women experience an even greater fat percentage increase than men do. Then after menopause (yours truly), our body fat distribution tends to shift—less in our arms, legs and hips, and more in the abdomen.

Unfortunately, space necessitates brevity. In a nutshell, these abdominal fat cells are no slouches; they’re actively producing hormones and other substances that can affect our health. Here’s what scientists have discovered: ”...some fat-cell-produced hormones can promote insulin resistance, a precursor to type 2 diabetes; others can produce estrogen after menopause, which may increase your
breast cancer risk.” One this for certain: Excess hormones affect overall health and too much visceral fat can disrupt the body’s normal hormonal balance.