Ep 39. How Can Teens Improve Belly Fat

I hear a lot from teens that they want to improve their belly fat. Is this possible?
Yes it is!! It is actually a great thing to do, not only so that teens can look more beautiful but also because less belly fat helps decrease the inflammation in the body.

In this episode, I talk about research that was done to investigate the above. 
Listen to learn more.

Title of the manuscript: Visceral fat decreased by long-term interdisciplinary lifestyle therapy correlated positively with interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor–α and negatively with adiponectin levels in obese adolescents. By Fábio Santos Liraa et al
 Metabolism Clinical and Experimental 60 (2011) 359–365

I’m Dr. Jenny Gourgari—pediatric endocrinologist, certified in obesity medicine and a health coach.
After helping hundreds of teens struggling with their weight and hormones, I’ve created a whole new path by doing what most programs miss: balance puberty hormones naturally and create habits that actually last.

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✅ No more food fights between parents and teens.
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Because when teens understand their hormones and get the right support, they don’t just lose weight—they gain strength, energy, confidence, and freedom!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Lifestyle and Weight Loss for Teens
podcast.
If you're a mom and want tohelp your child who is
struggling to lose weight, youare in the right place.
If you are looking for healthylifestyle tips, dr Gorgery is
here to help you understand thescience around safe weight loss
in teens and children, becausewhat works for adult weight loss
is not always the best forchildren.

(00:29):
This podcast is for educationalpurposes only.
Dr Gorgory does not providemedical, psychological or
nutrition therapy advice.
You should not use thisinformation to diagnose or treat
any health problems withoutconsulting your own medical
practitioner and now your host,dr Jenny Gorgory.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of the
Lifestyle and Weight Loss forTeens podcast.
This is Dr Jenny Gorgory andtoday I will be talking about
belly fat in teenagers and whatcan we do to decrease the belly
fat and why do we care about itto begin with?
So I'm going to present onescientific manuscript which was

(01:20):
published a few years ago, in2011.
The actual title of themanuscript is Visceral Fat
Decreased by Long-TermInterdisciplinary Lifestyle
Therapy, correlated Positivewith Interleukin-6 and Tumor
Necrosis Factor A and Negativelywith Adiponectin Levels in
Obese Adolescents.

(01:40):
It was published in the Journalof Metabolism, clinical and
Experimental in 2011.
It's a long title, but don'tworry if you don't understand
everything in the title.
I just wanted to give areference for anybody who wants
to actually go and read thisstudy.
The reason I decided to bringthis study on is because I see a

(02:02):
lot of teenagers and a lot offamilies trying to look for
quick fixes to bring the bellyfat down, and the main driver
that people want to do that is Iunderstand one reason is
cosmetic they don't want theirbelly and they want the belly
disappear, the belly and theywant the belly disappear.

(02:29):
But as doctors and as providersand as people who care for our
health.
The reason the belly fat is notgood for the health is because
it creates a lot of inflammationand it creates also worse
insulin resistance.
So what insulin resistance does?
It makes you predisposed to getdiabetes in the belly.

(02:50):
So there are certain conditionsand certain hormones that favor

(03:14):
this deposition of fat in thebelly, that make you have more
belly fat.
And there is a way that we canactually measure it.
We can do CT scans, we can doCT scans, we can do ultrasounds,
we can do MRIs.
So in this particular study, theresearchers, what they did is
they used ultrasound to measurethe amount of belly fat in

(03:39):
teenagers that were between theages of 15 and 19 years of age.
Then they put them into ayear-long program Again, I
repeat, a year-long program.
So this was not an overnightfix right.
It was a year-long programwhere the teenagers had both
exercise.

(03:59):
They had exercise for threetimes weekly for about an hour
or so.
They had exercise for threetimes weekly for about an hour
or so, and then they also havethem meet with a dietician and
try to make healthier choices.
And they were a total of 54teenagers that participated in
this year-long.
It was done in Sao PauloMedical School and the average

(04:27):
body mass index of the teenagersthat participated was 37.
So if you don't know what bodymass index, you can go and
listen to episode one of thispodcast.
But basically they were allteenagers that had a significant
problem with their weight.
Most of them were already inpuberty and, as I mentioned,

(04:52):
they did an ultrasound tomeasure how much belly fat they
had.
They also did blood tests tocheck for markers of
inflammation in their body, andwe know that inflammation is
really bad for our health.
It can create all sorts ofproblems and so they did measure
inflammation markers both atthe beginning and at the end of

(05:17):
this program.
So every week as part of thisprogram, the teenagers would
have lessons around the weightloss diets, the miracle diets,
the fat-free food, thelow-calorie food.
They learned how to read foodlabels.
They realized more whatconstitutes fast food, what is

(05:40):
nutritional composition of thefood, what there were some
healthier choices they couldmake instead, like, for example,
healthy sandwiches, healthyshakes and all those things.
They were taught also how tomake healthier decisions on
their food choices, and allpatients had received

(06:02):
nutritional advice at thebeginning of the program and
they also asked them to keep acalendar and a diary of what
they were eating to sort of geta sense of how much they were
eating.
They also asked them toparticipate, as I mentioned, in
a 60-minute exercise, an intensekind of program.

(06:23):
Minutes exercise, an intensekind of program.
It was set at to 70% of oxygenuptake tests, which means they
were like doing three timesintense activity.
They also met with apsychologist.
So the psychologist alsoevaluated the teenagers for body
image issues, their anxiety,their self-esteem, and they help

(06:45):
them process their feelings,how they process their feelings
in a healthier way.
So they don't have a lot ofemotional eating.
And at the end of the programwhat the researchers found was
that this one year long programwas very effective in reducing
the body weight.
Their BMI was reduced by 9.3%and the percent fat also

(07:14):
decreased by 24% the whole bodyfat.
So before they start theprogram their average percentage
fat ranged between 32% and 58%and after the program the total
body fat was between 10% and 55%.
And the other thing when theylook at the belly fat, we call

(07:38):
it visceral fat in scientificterms there was a total decrease
of 50%, 49% to be exact, whichis a huge decrease in belly fat.
They also found a significantreduction of inflammation.
That was in the range of 8% inone of the factors and 29% in

(08:05):
the other factors.
So this was a very significantstudy that showed that after a
year-long program, it ispossible to decrease the belly
fat by 50% by following thosesimple steps guidelines for

(08:27):
exercise and healthier nutrition.
And, of course, this was anorganized program, which talks
about the importance also ofbeing part of a supervised
program in a team that canmonitor the progress.
There is accountability, thereis scientific guidance and that
helps teenagers get the resultsthat they want.

(08:47):
But it is possible to decreasethe belly fat by almost 50% in
teenagers.
It is possible to reverse that.
However, I would point out thatthis can take time and that it
doesn't have to be right away,and I would encourage you to not

(09:12):
look for magic diets or magicthings that can just make the
belly fat disappear in one month, because those are all
short-lived solutions.
They don't last long and it isimportant to build the habits
that will get you where you wantto get and also will be able to

(09:35):
maintain those results, becauseonce you establish the habits,
then nobody can take those awayfrom you.
And finally, since we're talkingabout belly fat, I want to
mention that liposuction, whichhas been tried by some people.
It can decrease the fat fromthe belly, but only in the

(09:58):
superficial belly.
It doesn't decrease the bellyin, the fat inside the belly
that is responsible for theinflammation.
It can only decrease the fatthat is below the skin.
So those are two different typeof fats the subcutaneous fat
and the visceral fat, as we callit.

(10:18):
So.
Visceral fat, the fat that isactually associated with
inflammation, the fat that isassociated with complications in
terms of cardiovascular health.
That fat can be decreased byhealthy lifestyle, weight loss,
but not easy, quick fix, even ifthat is liposuction, which is a

(10:40):
very aggressive method.
So keep that in mind and I hopethis was helpful.
If you want to learn more aboutthe Lifestyle and Weight Loss
for Teens program that I havecreated to help teenagers build
healthy habits, feel free toreach out to me.
Info at lifestyleforteenscom.

(11:02):
If you have any other questionsor comments, please feel free
to reach out to me, and I'malways looking for topics that I
can talk more.
So if you have any ideas, anystruggles or anything you would
like me to talk more about, feelfree to reach out to me and
share this episode with a friendor somebody who needs to hear.

(11:23):
If you know somebody, that'sall I had.
Take care, I'll talk to yousoon.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
If you enjoyed listening to this podcast.
I invite you to come check outthe Lyft program.
It's Dr Gorgeri's 12-weekcoaching program for teens and
their moms, where we take allthis information, we apply it to
your daily life and we worktogether so your teenager learns
how to create a healthylifestyle so they can feel
happier, more confident, lessstressed and love their body

(11:49):
again.
Visit the website atlifestyleforteenscom and click
on the work with me and freeresources to learn more about
this program and get free helpto start this journey right away
.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llcatch you in the next episode of
Lifestyle and Weight Loss forTeens.