As you gain weight and your stomach gets bigger why does it start to hang instead of sticking out like a pregnant stomach?
In: Biology
In short, subcutaneous fat “sits outside” most of our body’s support structures so it doesn’t benefit from them.
The only thing that’s really supporting belly fat is skin, and some connective tissue inside the fat. In contrast a baby is supported by the uterus (which is a pretty serious layer of muscle) and the inner abdominal wall, and the whole network of abdominal muscles, and (last and least) the skin.
Note: if someone has a gut, some of that fat is right under the skin and that’s what I was mostly talking about above, AND some of it is visceral fat that’s in among the abdominal organs. Visceral fat is well supported, structurally, so it’s barely involved when you see gut sag. It’s a metabolic and hormonal calamity but that’s not what we’re talking about here. 🙂
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