The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

Episode 72 The Hidden Dangers of the Dad Bod

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 72

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Is the charming "dad bod" silently jeopardizing your health? In this episode, I discuss the health risks of carrying extra abdominal weight. Discover how visceral fat, which accumulates around your organs, paves the way for conditions like fatty liver disease, diabetes, and heart disease.

I also discuss the things that men can do to support healthy testosterone levels and why it is so important.


Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay



Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be talking to you about what is affectionately called the dad bod. So we kind of laugh at a man when he starts to get that bit of a punch and a bit of a tummy going on and we call it the dad bod and it's all a bit of a joke, but unfortunately it's actually not really that.

Fiona Kane:

Abdominal weight actually does have effects, does have effects on our health, and it's really really important to understand what they are and understand that the dad bod is not as innocent as you might like to think it is. And we have the same sorts of issues, slightly different, but a lot of the very similar issues. As women and again, with women, it's not always about whether you're carrying weight, but it's where you're carrying the weight. So if you're carrying weight on your, you know, on your backside or or, you know, upper arms or those kinds of issues, that might not be ideal but that's not necessarily metabolically dangerous for you. But when we carry a lot of weight around our abdomen, our tummy, that's the sort of stuff that is attached to organs and things like that that's associated with fatty liver disease and those kinds of issues, and that is actually a problem. But today I will specifically be focusing on the men and the dad bod, but there are similar issues. It's kind of a crossover thing, but anyway. So in regards to the dad bod, so the first thing to say would be that if you have that issue, if you have that sort of tummy thing going on otherwise it's called a beer belly, that sort of thing it is visceral fat. It's a visceral fat. It's the fat that's packed around your organs. So I was just talking before about things like fatty liver disease. So essentially, what happens is those organs will start releasing various hormones and proteins and things because they've got all this fat surrounding them and they are things that start to begin to cause chronic inflammation With fatty liver disease.

Fiona Kane:

The most common form of fatty liver disease is not alcoholic fatty liver disease. Now it's actually non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and that is caused by food largely. And not saying that in some cases this is also alcohol for some of these people because the B-belly but the B-belly can also be caused by just a really high carb diet. And not saying that in some cases this is also alcohol for some of these people because the beer belly. But the beer belly can also be caused by just a really high carb diet, which has the same detrimental effect to your liver. You get that fatty liver, so it is the most dangerous fat, the fat they have around your organs like that, and over time it does increase the risk of things like diabetes, dementia, heart heart attack, stroke, cancer, all of those things. So it really isn't innocent. Unfortunately, all of our fat is not created equal and the fat around the belly is actually a problem and is something that you need to address.

Fiona Kane:

Now, one of the things I was kind of hinting at talking about a moment before is just about insulin resistance. So insulin resistance is essentially when your cells in your body no longer recognize insulin anymore. Now insulin is produced by your pancreas to allow your body to metabolize glucose in your diet. So you eat a carbohydrate or a sugary food and it goes straight into your bloodstream and then becomes glucose in your bloodstream and your body has to maintain a certain level of glucose, so between certain levels, and so what it does is any extra glucose that's in the bloodstream from that meal. It will pull that glucose out of the bloodstream and deposit it into cells and if you're using that glucose and if you're eating the right amount of glucose, it will deposit into places like muscle and liver but be used quite quickly and quite easily and a non-issue If you're eating more than you need.

Fiona Kane:

What happens is it starts to get deposited in fat cells and then it starts to build up as visceral fat around organs, and that's a whole different issue to just doing the normal storage it does. It does a normal storage as glycogen in the liver and in your muscles, stored there. That's normal. But this is where it actually starts to become visceral fat. And what happens is when, with insulin resistance, the cells stop recognizing insulin, and insulin is the thing that opens the door of the cell and gets the glucose into the cell. And eventually what happens is your cells don't recognize insulin anymore, so you can't remove glucose from your bloodstream.

Fiona Kane:

So what happens is you remain, stay with that high blood glucose levels, and the high blood glucose levels is what can cause a lot of damage to your blood vessels, which is eventually what can cause things like erectile dysfunction and like blindness and the sort of thing that leads to diabetics ending up having to have their feet cut off. It's essentially you damage the small vessels on the periphery of your body. So whether it's your eyes or whether it's your sexual organs or whether it's your feet, that periphery doesn't get the circulation and that can be caused a lot by this sort of high glucose levels in the bloodstream. So with insulin resistance, your blood glucose stays high and because your body's concerned that your blood glucose is high, it keeps releasing more and more insulin. And having a lot of insulin being released into your system is actually quite inflammatory and you'll end up gaining weight because essentially, like I said, the glucose all just gets stuck into fat cells. Because your body's trying to get rid of the glucose. It's trying to get rid of glucose it's trying to get rid of, it's trying to sort this problem out and the best thing it can do is just chuck it in a whole bunch of fat cells. But those fat cells that are around your organs, like your liver, start to cause a lot of problems. So we do end up when we have insulin resistance. You'll see someone's started to get abdominal weight. That means they're developing insulin resistance. So even if you haven't been diagnosed with insulin resistance yet, if you've got a lot of abdominal weight, that is what is happening, whether it's a pathology to be diagnosed yet or not. You know you're developing insulin resistance and you likely have a fatty liver disease. Excuse me, I'll just have a sip of my tea.

Fiona Kane:

So insulin resistance is a major issue and insulin resistance is essentially pre-diabetes, so it will lead to type 2 diabetes and that in turn leads to heart disease and a whole bunch of other health issues, some of which I just discussed. Then it also can lead to, uh, what's like dementia, because that's kind of. It's been called type 3 diabetes by a lot of people now, because that whole blood glucose dysregulation. It causes inflammation, it causes heart disease. It seems to just have all of these downstream effects where it's associated with so many other forms of disease. So insulin resistance is a real problem. Your body becomes less responsive to insulin and then you start to have all this blood glucose dysregulation, high levels of insulin, high levels of glucose, and you have all of that abdominal fat, right. So it is a major issue. Now this, like I said, it leads into chronic inflammation. So this combination of insulin resistance and visceral fat will cause widespread inflammation in your body and that's, like I just said, damaging organs, blood vessels, nervous system. So I talked about before how heart disease is a downstream effect from this, and it is. So this sort of chronic inflammation that can damage your blood vessels and damage your arteries is what's going to lead to heart disease.

Fiona Kane:

So we're all kind of worried about oh, I shouldn't eat eggs because I have cholesterol. No, don't worry about that. Eggs have cholesterol, it's good for you, it's not a problem. We think that cholesterol is the pure and simple. You eat cholesterol and it blocks your arteries and your diet. That's no, that's not true. Cholesterol is involved in heart disease, but it's much more complicated than that. I've done another episode completely on cholesterol, so go back and watch that one. But essentially, this chronic disease that we're seeing, this chronic heart disease inflammation, is what's behind it. It's insulin resistance inflammation. This is largely what drives the heart disease. So you have a much higher risk of, like I said, stroke or heart attack, that kind of thing.

Fiona Kane:

So the other thing that can happen when we've got this chronic inflammation you often see it hand in hand is we do start to have breakdown of joints as well. So this chronic inflammation essentially causes our cartilage to break down and then you can end up with this widespread pain and so the wear and tear isn't always just about the wear and tear, as in the using and walking around all the time and using the joints, it's also related to inflammation. When you have chronic inflammation, you will also get wear and tear. So arthritis can be just associated with chronic inflammation, as it is about just overuse or just long-term use, that kind of thing. So the other issue, of course, is if you have a dad bod, you're carrying extra weight and that extra weight does have an effect. Obviously, your body's carrying around more weight, so that's going to affect your joints as well.

Fiona Kane:

The other thing that can happen here is low testosterone can be part of this picture. It's one of those things that now we're finding that there's lower testosterone in general in the community, but also a lot of these health issues cause low testosterone. It's chicken or egg, I don't know, but it can go both ways. So the thing that these issues I think can push down your testosterone, but also that low testosterone is important for a lot of these functions and a lot of people have low testosterone now. So it's said that the average 25-year-old today has the testosterone levels of a 45-year-old 30 years ago. So it's showing you that low testosterone is an issue.

Fiona Kane:

Testosterone is essential for things like metabolism and muscle development, fertility, energy, cognition. So when our hormones change, there's an issue and we see the same issue for women when they go into menopause that our hormones, that sort of progesterone and estrogen, is protective for us in regards to heart disease, that kind of thing. So once we go into menopause, perimenopause and menopause, we are at the same risk as men are of heart disease issues. So essentially, those sex hormones that we make are protective of us for a certain period of time and if we lose those early, so as in men who have low testosterone or women who have early menopause, then we are at higher risk of all of these serious things like heart disease at a younger age.

Fiona Kane:

And because testosterone is also associated with muscle development and because you know testosterone is also associated with muscle development and and I've talked about this before, I think, or I probably will again in a future episode as well in regards to menopause that um, that the estrogen and progesterone um, are protective of muscle in women and so if we have that lower muscle, there is a problem there as well, because muscle is active and it helps manage your metabolism and manage your blood glucose levels and also it helps you to burn fat as well. And if we're low in muscle and besides, I've talked about it before, but of course muscle is important for function, for holding your body upright, for making your body work, for being able to just function and do day-to-day things, and from stopping you from keeping your balance, to stop you from having falls and things like that. So if you've got a good muscle mass, that actually bodes well for getting older, because you're less likely to fall over and break your leg or break a hip or something like that. So muscle's really important. But when we have this kind of low testosterone, which is more common today, we end up with that. Now, the sorts of things that can contribute besides, I think, just genetically, how this seems to be happening generation to generation the sort of things that can affect this as well. Excuse me, I'll just have another drink the sort of things that can contribute to this low testosterone are things like I was talking about beer before. So too much beer actually does have this kind of lowering of testosterone effect. So there's almost feminizing effect on men, which is also why they often get man boobs as well, right, so we see the beer, things like poor sleep, processed foods. So when we eat all these processed foods and this high carbohydrate diet, that's kind of what leads to this insulin resistance, fatty liver, abdominal fat, visceral fat and inflammation, right. So when we have that kind of diet, that's going to cause those issues.

Fiona Kane:

Lower activity is also part of it as well. So just not moving your body, because move your body, that maintains your muscle mass. Maintain your muscle mass keeps your metabolism going, etc. So anyway, when we have this kind of sedentary lives where we're drinking a lot of beer and eating a lot of carbs, so the person is on the lounge with their beer, with the chips, whatever. Not moving their body, the testosterone is going to become very low and then it sort of feeds back into these things because then the energy is low and then overall that's going to affect their mood and their energy and their metabolism and they go to be less inclined to get off the lounge. And that's where these issues become this kind of catch-22, because over time, the issue you have because it affects your hormones etc. What happens is you that your ability to and motivation to want to get up off the lounge, to want to move your body, to want to exercise is reduced because your hormones that help you feel better about those things are reduced.

Fiona Kane:

And when you're sitting in the lounge and you're just eating a packaged food and drinking a beer or whatever, you're probably having less protein because you're eating all these packets of chips and packet things instead. So you're not eating the protein. You need the protein for the muscle. You also need the protein for the neurotransmitters in the brain to have a healthy mood. You know you're probably not eating things like fermented foods or probiotic foods that are feeding your good bacteria. You're eating foods that have good nutrition in them. So you're not getting all the nutrition you need for healthy body, healthy mind and for motivation. And then also, you're sitting in the lounge doing these things that reduce your testosterone, which reduces your motivation.

Fiona Kane:

And then, of course, just the fact that you're sitting there in a lounge not doing anything also makes you feel bad about yourself. So you can see, this just ends up being, you know, going around and around in circles. So at some point there just needs to be a circuit breaker where it's just like okay, that's it. I'm just going to get up and change this, because if you don't, then yeah, if you don't, then it just, like I said, this just gets worse and worse and worse. So the other issues you again like when we're in this chronic inflammation and chronic stress, we're going to have trouble maintaining and building muscle. So we're going to have this decline of muscle sort of as we age and, like I said before, this is going to affect your mental health. So you'll start to feel depressed, you start to have stress and anxiety from the low nutrients and from the just not, you know, low activity, not getting out there in the outdoors, not moving your body, so all of these functions not happening in your body. So you're chronically inflamed and it's going to just lead to all of this mental health issues as well.

Fiona Kane:

So you know you've got to start not liking what you see when you look in the mirror. You're going to start not liking yourself and when you see that you've got less muscle and less strength, that's not good for a man's psychology, you know. So it's hard to restore belief in yourself when you feel that way. And you know you've got this poor metabolism now because once you have insulin resistance you end up with this laying down a lot of fat. So the body becomes less efficient at burning fat. So you just end up with more and more weight gain and, of course, the cycle it just goes around.

Fiona Kane:

And when we have this dad bod, like I was saying before, it's associated with this visceral fat and this reduced muscle mass and the reduced ability to make and create and maintain muscle, because you've got less testosterone, and it becomes a big issue. And the other issue that can stem from this is because this can affect your sex drive. Often these people have intimacy issues and not just your sex drive, but, like I was talking about before, if you're actually starting to sustain damage, you might also just have issues with erectile dysfunction and those issues. So what it does start to do is it starts to create big issues in relationships and marriages and this is a big issue for people who aren't with a partner at all, because it's going to reduce their chance of being motivated to find a partner and being able to keep a partner if they're having all of these issues, all of the above issues. And so what's happening now is also is and this is a whole other, probably is a whole other episode but a lot of these men, especially young men today, who aren't in the dating scene, a lot of them are kind of turning to porn as a way of managing those parts of their life, and that's not healthy because porn gets in the way of healthy relationships and marriages. It's so unreal and so unrealistic that people get a really messed up sense of what sex is and what healthy intimacy is, and that just can be a major issue as well.

Fiona Kane:

And the other thing too is you'll often get sleep apnea will come along with this, and it relates to the metabolic issues also to the weight issues. It can be as well. So it's not just weight, but a lot of these issues can start to drive sleep apnea. You have sleep apnea, you're not getting enough oxygen, you're not getting enough healthy sleep, and we know that that all drives the inflammation and the same problems and the depression, and so you can see all of this stuff it just ends up being one big circle that it sort of cycles back in on itself and causes the same problem over and over again.

Fiona Kane:

Now, essentially, what these men need to be doing is they need to be eating more protein and they need to be moving their bodies. They need to be exercising and they need to be lifting weights. They don't have to be lifting 50 million pound weights or whatever. I'm making it up, you get what I'm saying. But they do need to be lifting, they need to get their muscle working, they need to have muscle mass. No, they don't have to be hair men, I'm just talking about just normal muscle mass and things. But that lifting will really, really help that. And just look at any type of exercise. Initially they just need to be getting out, going outside, walking, moving their bodies, but they need to be away from the computer screens, away from the TVs, away from sitting in front of the television.

Fiona Kane:

The other thing that can contribute to all of this is stress. So a lot of people end up with this dad bod because they've got chronic stress from their job and then again, like I said, all of this leads into everything else. So you have chronic stress that leads back into. It's kind of like this never ending kind of circuit where, wherever you go, it just cycles back in. So that's why I said there needs to be like this circuit breaker where it's just like okay, I'm not doing this anymore and you need to sort of start eating the protein, start getting rid of the junk food, start getting off the lounge, get rid of that beer.

Fiona Kane:

Go out and move your body and unfortunately it's one of those things that it's not going to get better by staying in the lounge thinking about it. It's going to get better by getting off the lounge and just moving it. Unfortunately, you just need to get moving and you know you could join a local I know around in Sydney anyway there's local men's walk and talk groups but just moving your body in some way, some capacity, just go and walk around the block so you can see how these issues become like a chronic issue and then essentially, these issues ultimately are what can turn into dementia as we get older. So I just want to make sure that you understand that having a dad bod is not a joke. It might sort of seem funny, but it's an indication that everything is heading in the wrong direction. It's an indication that that person has insulin resistance, likely fatty liver, they've got chronic inflammation, and so they're going to ultimately end up with problems with joints, with sleep, with diabetes, with heart disease, with sexual intimacy and with so many other things.

Fiona Kane:

And once these problems are compounded and you've got many of these problems, and then you go on medications to manage the problems, and the medications all cause side effects. You end up in a situation where you're fatigued all of the time. If you've got this breakdown of joints and you're fatigued all the time, you don't want to go out and do the exercise and you can see how this stuff just compounds on itself and becomes a major issue to the end, to the point that you know it's that funny thing because we have created this longevity, that we live for longer now in the western world and we can take a lot of medications to keep us a life longer, but it's not always a life that you want to live. Uh, it's. That's often that last 10 or 20 years can be just awful because it's all of these issues just compounding on top of each other and it ends up being a very miserable and sad last 10 or 20 years of your life. So my recommendations aren't always about just like so we can all live to 100 and whatever. It's more about quality of life, and quality of life is going to be majorly impacted by these issues.

Fiona Kane:

So if you have the dad bod, it needs to be taken seriously. You need to address it, because if you don't, the direction you're potentially heading in is going to be really dreadful for you and your family. So take the dad bod seriously. Understand that underlying that is insulin resistance and fatty liver and those issues, and that's what leads to all of the other long-term chronic health problems. So the dad bod is not a joke. Anyway, I would like to ask you please to like, subscribe, to share and to, if you would like to. You can comment on on youtube and on rumble, and I will talk to you all again next week. Thanks for listening. Bye.

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