How To Know If You’re Skinny Fat – Developing An Official Skinny Fat Diagnosis

As of April 9, 2025, there is no official way (1, 2) for medical doctors to offer a skinny fat diagnosis. Yet, go online, especially on social media, and everyone is diagnosing everyone on a whim with no scientific measures, at least. Skinny fat has become a derogatory term to shame, hate, bully, and troll.

Never mind that skinny fat is genetic (1) and no human being can naturally, permanently (2, 1) change their unique genetic body composition any more than they can their skin color, hair color, eye color, height, hand size, feet size, genital size, breast size, facial features, etc. Yes, it is definitely possible to lose regular white/yellow body fat (common adipose tissue) and add muscle mass to “recomp” you body. But neither is permanent.

How To Know If You’re Skinny Fat – Developing An Official Skinny Fat Diagnosis

Skinny fat science is very young, initially mentioned in the official literature in 2006 with the first NIH definition in 2016 (3, 1). Since 2003, Fellow One Research has researched skinny fat to develop the only existing scientific data (4) anywhere. This includes real human beings experiencing real skinny fat.

Even with 22+ years of scientific research and copious hard data, evidence, and facts, there is only one way how to know if you’re experiencing skinny fat — proving what skinny fat is with our Scientific Skinny Fat MRI Study (5). One of the main goals of the MRI Study is to develop an official way for medical doctors to diagnose skinny fat.

How the MRI Research Develops An Official Skinny Fat Diagnosis

A specific MRI scan (5) is the only technology capable of accurately differentiating between muscle tissue, white/yellow fat tissue, brown fat tissue, beige fat tissue, and skinny fat tissue (cellulite, thin fat)(1). We know cellulite is very real. What is unclear is what thin fat skinny fat tissue is.

For instance, what exactly is the “weird fat” (thin fat) tissue on this professional trainer’s lower back and lover handles?

They have no visceral/belly fat, no excess body fat (white/yellow fat) at a safe BMI of 22.7, no low muscle mass, and are not experiencing normal weight obesity — all of which are supposedly the key major signs of skinny fat. Yet they have obvious “weird fat” tissue on their lower back and love handles. No process exists in the human body that would cause that person’s muscle tissue on their love handles and lower back to turn into any kind of fat tissue.

So, what is that “weird fat” tissue?

How To Know If You Are Skinny Fat

There is only one way to know – a proper MRI scan. No other technology exists that can discern the difference between tissues at the level and accuracy required. Once we have the proper science from the MRI Study that proves what skinny fat is, we can develop a proper protocol that will give medical doctors the official means to diagnose skinny fat, no less.

This can then be accurately applied to no less than metabolism, diet, exercise, and lifestyle to improve overall health and mitigate (5) the skinny fat crisis, obesity epidemic, and mental health crisis, at least.

Scientific Skinny Fat MRI Study – Proving What Skinny Fat Is

References

1. Skinny Fat Science: What Is Skinny Fat?, July 26, 2024. https://skinnyfat.fellowone.com/skinny-fat-science/what-is-skinny-fat/
2. Skinny Fat Science: How To Fix Skinny Fat, July 27, 2024. https://skinnyfat.fellowone.com/skinny-fat-science/how-to-fix-skinny-fat/
3. Skinny Fat Science: Skinny Fat Is More Than Just Normal-Weight Obesity, April 2, 2025. https://skinnyfat.fellowone.com/skinny-fat-science/skinny-fat-is-more-than-just-normal-weight-obesity/
4. Fellow One Research: Body Type Science Research Data. https://www.fellowone.com/category/fellow-one-research/the-four-body-types/body-type-science/research-data/
5. Skinny fat Science: Scientific Skinny Fat MRI Study – Proving What Skinny Fat Is, March 26, 2025.https://skinnyfat.fellowone.com/skinny-fat-science/scientific-skinny-fat-mri-study-proving-what-skinny-fat-is/