Fat Storage

Fat storage as a disease causing process has received much publicity. Whenever food is abundant, humans and other animals overeat and get fat. What is biological purpose of fat. What are the benefits of fat storage? 

Fat storage does have several purposes and offers benefits. Everyone stores some white fat to provide insulation and body shape. Our facial contours are constructed from fat. The shape of women’s bodies differ from men’s bodies because of carefully designed fat deposits in the breast, abdomen and buttocks. Extra fat is a good insulator and keeps you warm. Extra fat is buoyant and helps you float in water. Marine mammals are all fat because they swim in cold water. Eskimos are fat so that they can survive cold winters when food is scarce. Brown fat is a source of heat; calories are burned in brown fat to warm the body.

Children hear stories about prudent animals who prepare for the future and do well and imprudent animals who only live for the present and perish. The child knows that squirrels store nuts for the winter and bees survive the winter by eating the honey they made during the summer. Bears get fat in the summer so that they can hibernate during the winter. The challenge of a seasonal food supply is expressed in acquisitive behavior, gaining weight and hoarding food. Most humans seem to have an odd mixture of prudent and imprudent behaviors and only a small number appear to be good at long-term planning. Humans are better at consuming on the run and adapt to changing conditions.

Humans are relatively tolerant of short-term food deprivation and take advantage of surplus by feasting and celebrating. The party aspect of human behavior links us strongly with carnivorous predators who gorge when they have made a kill and then rest.

Anxiety about the future vanishes when you are full and returns as a viable concept when your hunger returns. Predators are not always successful in the hunt and have to endure periods of deprivation or even starvation. Humans like other mammals store fat to supply energy when food becomes scarce. The more fat you store, the longer you can survive starvation. In other words, there is a built in tendency to binge eat and gain weight when food is abundant.

If you accept that the overweight condition is caused by the lack of famine, absence of hibernation and/or the failure to schedule sustained athletic training, you are better prepared to lose weight. All overweight people would become slimmer people if they ate less food.

All overweight people would become slimmer if they hibernated over the winter and did not eat food for 4 months. All overweight people would become lean people if they as trained hard and long as an endurance cyclist. Long-distance athletes are the leanest people in town because sustained exertion causes muscle cells to use fat as fuel. If you train long enough and hard enough, most of your stored body fat is burned as fuel.

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Eating and Weight Management

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