• Question: People who are obese have a layer of fat, right? So if you cut their stomach for example how could any blood come out if there's fat in the way? Sounds like a wierd question, but I'm just interested...

    Asked by Zoe to Rebecca, Anna, Hayley, Iain on 24 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Iain Bethune

      Iain Bethune answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      The layer of fat lies below the skin, and your skin includes lots of tiny blood vessels which are use to circulate blood to keep your body temperature just right – that’s why when you are hot you turn red – more blood is pumped to your skin so that heat can be radiated away and cool you down.

      So when you cut your skin, there will always be some bleeding, even if the layer below is fat rather than muscle. One thing I learned when I did a first aid qualification is that there are three types of bleeding:

      Capillary bleeding (oozing blood from tiny blood vessels near your skin)
      Veinous bleeding (flowing blood with a dark red colour from)
      Arterious bleeding (bright red, spurting blood from a severed artery – very bad news and can quickly kill you!)

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