Unlike the fat beneath the abdominal wall, or love handles, internal fat around abdominal organs may actually be more damaging, says a U.S. study.

Because metabolic abnormalities appear to be more closely associated with intra-abdominal fat tissue, it is critical to be able to reliably and accurately assess this fat tissue in order to identify children at risk, said lead researcher Dr. Marilyn J. Siegel of the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study of 30 adolescents had fat tissue measurements taken using anthropometry -- DEXA and single-slice and whole-abdominal, multi-slice MRI. The study's 20 boys and 10 girls were between the ages of 10 and 18 and included nine overweight but non-diabetic individuals, 10 type-2 diabetic and overweight patients and 11 normal weight, non-diabetic adolescents.