It’s no secret that having too much body fat could be bad for your health. You probably focus on how much you have, but another aspect worth paying attention to is fat distribution — or where you have it.

It turns out that there are certain places where having excess fat could be problematic, and there are other places where it might not be that big of a deal.

How can you tell the difference?

Let’s dive into what you should know about fat distribution and what it can tell you about your health. Plus, how you can achieve a better balance.

You have plenty of say over your total amount of body fat. As for where that fat tends to show up? That can be a little harder to manage.

Most people tend to accumulate fat either in their midsection or in their hips and thighs. But your genes, sex, age, and hormones could affect how much fat you have and where it goes.

What determines where fat goes?

  • Your genes. Fat distribution is influenced in part by your genetics. These genetic effects are thought to affect females more strongly than males.
  • Your sex. Healthy body fat levels for males range from 18 to 24 percent, but for females, it’s between 25 and 31 percent. “And men tend to accumulate more fat around the midsection, while women gain it more in the hips and buttocks,” says Keith Ayoob, EdD, RD, associate clinical professor emeritus at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
  • Your age. Older adults tend to have higher levels of body fat overall, thanks to factors like a slowing metabolism and gradual loss of muscle tissue. And the extra fat is more likely to be visceral instead of subcutaneous.
  • Your hormone levels. Weight and hormones are commonly linked, even more so in your 40s. This is due to the natural decline of hormones like testosterone (in men) and estrogen (in women), explains Pamela Peeke, MD, a body fat expert and author of “Body for Life for Women.”

Believe it or not, there are three types of body fat. Not only do they all have different functions, but they’re all located in different parts of your body.

Here’s a breakdown of what these fat types are:

  • Subcutaneous fat sits on top of your muscle, right underneath your skin. It’s the kind you can poke or pinch, often around your butt, hips, or thighs. This makes up about 90 percent of our fat stores.
  • Visceral fat sits deep inside the abdominal cavity. It surrounds vital organs like the liver, intestines, and heart. Unlike subcutaneous fat, you can’t touch or feel it. But it can pose serious health risks.
  • Brown fat is a special type of fat that actually helps the body burn extra calories to stay warm. Babies have a lot of brown fat, but adults have small amounts too, mostly around the shoulder and chest areas.

Subcutaneous fat is basically stored energy. Small amounts of it can be more helpful than you think.

It pumps out hormones like leptin, which signal to the brain that you’re full and don’t need to keep eating. It also makes adiponectin, an anti-inflammatory hormone that plays a role in maintaining healthy blood sugar levels.

In other words? Resist that urge to judge your jiggle. Some can actually be a good thing.

Because it’s stored around your vital organs, visceral fat can make its way into your liver. From there, it’s turned into cholesterol, which travels into the bloodstream and can clog up arteries.

Visceral fat is also thought to signal the release of inflammatory chemicals and contribute to insulin resistance.

Both of these processes can affect your body.

Excess visceral fat can increase your risk of:

The most precise way to measure the amount in your body is with an MRI or CT scan. But you may be able to get some insight by measuring yourself.

If you’re a woman with a waist circumference greater than 35 inches or a man with a waist circumference greater than 40 inches, you may have too much visceral fat.

You’re more likely to have too much visceral fat if your body mass index (BMI) falls in the overweight (25 to 29.9) or obese (30 or above) category.

But you shouldn’t rely on BMI alone to tell you whether your body fat falls in the healthy range, says Ayoob.

Research shows that 22 percent of men and 8 percent of women who are considered normal weight actually have too much visceral fat. (And are at risk for the health problems that can come with it.)

The opposite can also be true. Around 22 percent of men and 10 percent of women with obesity have levels of visceral fat that fall within the normal range.

The takeaway? It’s just as important to pay attention to the amount of fat around your midsection as the number on the scale.

Your body doesn’t have all the say over where your fat tends to live. Certain lifestyle factors also play a role.

Here are three common habits that cause visceral fat to build up:

  • Eating too much junk food. These foods have the ability to be absorbed quickly into the bloodstream, triggering a spike in insulin, which acts as a fat deposit hormone, says integrative weight loss specialist Luiza Petre, MD. Getting too much saturated fat seems to promote the buildup of visceral fat, too.
  • Being sedentary. The more time you spend sitting, the greater your waist circumference is likely to be, findings suggest. So when Netflix says, “Are you still watching?” use that as a reminder to take a stroll.
  • Letting stress get out of control. Over time, chronic stress prompts the body to pack on excess visceral fat. The largest concentration of receptors for the stress hormone cortisol can be found deep in visceral fat tissue, Peeke explains.

You might not have complete control over where your body prefers to store fat. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t steps you can take to keep excess fat from ending up in potentially harmful places, like deep in your belly.

  1. Choose complex carbs and protein over the sugary stuff. They digest at a slower rate, so your insulin levels stay steady instead of spiking and prompting your body to store extra belly fat, Petre says.
  2. Go for healthier dietary fats. Polyunsaturated fats like walnuts, salmon, and flax seeds are an especially good bet — especially when you swap them in for saturated fats. Findings suggest that polyunsaturated fats promote the growth of calorie-torching muscle tissue, while saturated fats seem to encourage excess fat storage.
  3. Exercise — and try to up the intensity. Get the most bang for your buck by breaking a sweat. Strength training helps increase muscle mass, which in turn reduces body fat, explains Petre. Research shows that high intensity intervals (like alternating sprinting with walking) are more effective for attacking visceral fat than moderate aerobic exercise.
  4. Try to keep your stress in check. Taming the tension keeps your system from constantly getting flooded with cortisol. That in turn can help keep excess fat from taking up home in your visceral tissue, Peeke says.
  5. Get enough sleep. Not getting enough sleep may increase BMI. A lack of sleep is also thought to be related to an increase in abdominal fat in particular.
  6. Limit your alcohol intake. Flooding your system with excessive amounts of alcohol in one sitting means more calories could get stored as visceral fat. Heavier drinkers tend to have higher levels of belly fat as well, so stick to no more than one drink a day (for women) or two per day (for men). And above all, avoid binge drinking. That’s defined as four or more drinks in two hours.

Just one thing…

You don’t need to try all these steps at once if they seem overwhelming. Enjoying the baby steps and building lifelong habits is a more effective and healthier approach.

You can always add in more strategies once you’ve conquered one.