The F-Bomb: Hidden Dangers of Excess Body Fat

Body fat impacts our health. Over the past two years it has been shown that being overweight increases the risk of severe COVID, but there are more ways that excess body fat may be silently changing our health.

Fat is a loaded term, so let’s clear up a few things.

1. Body fat, known as adipose tissue, has some benefits. We need some.
2. Whether you have more or less of it, fat has nothing to do with your value.
3. Having too much adipose tissue is not necessarily related to your weight.

Fat in our body

Essential fat is necessary to function. We have three types of body fat and three places to store it. The types are white, brown, and beige fat. It is stored under our skin, subcutaneous, in our muscles, intramuscular and in our abdomen as visceral fat. You can read more about it in Facts about Fat in the Body including how to estimate your body fat percentage.

It was thought that adipose tissue was simply energy storage. Consume more than we need and the excess was stored as body fat. It wasn’t metabolically active, it didn’t burn many calories. It didn’t affect our health unless it was in our heart or abdomen.

However, it has now been proven that adipose tissue is active and far from inert.

Can you be fat and healthy?

The research suggests that too much body fat is changing our health. This is where things can get messy. Body fat is such a controversial topic, but health is not.

It is always better to be fit, regardless of your size, but it is also a good idea to make changes to improve your muscle mass and lose extra adipose tissue. This does not mean going on a diet, it means eating well, paying attention to portions, eating when you are hungry, limiting processed foods. Traditional diets (reduced calories for a temporary period of time) may cause weight loss, but they also cause muscle loss.

Keep your muscle. Make more muscle. Do not lose your muscle.

3 ways fat changes our health

The evidence that too much adipose tissue affects our health is well-established. Fat is energy storage and temperature regulator, but it affects our immune system and insulin sensitivity. It can have an impact on all our organs, including our lungs. Being overweight is a risk factor for asthma, excess adipose tissue changes the structure of our airways.

High-fat health risks

A research review published in February in Cell argues that not only is too much adipose tissue on its own is a health risk, but excess fat reduces plasticity.

You probably have heard about neuroplasticity, a general term that refers to the brain’s ability to grow, change and adapt in response to experience.

The researchers propose that excess fat loses its plasticity. Too much of it and adipose tissue loses its ability to respond to changes. It is this loss of adaptability that causes insulin resistance and inflammation.

Immune cells and fat

Our immune cells rely on “tags” to fight cancer. They look for tags to distinguish between normal and abnormal cells. A high-fat diet changes how our intestinal cells and immune cells talk to each other. The immune system looks for and removes threats, but a high-fat diet reduces this ability. High-fat diets change the microbiome so that the immune cells don’t recognize the tags associated with abnormal cells.

Immune cells respond to a high-fat diet like they are fighting an infection. Being overweight causes inflammation, but so does eating high-fat foods, even before a change in weight.

What can you do?

All the best health habits add up, even if you don’t lose weight. Exercise, especially strength training is a great way to build more muscle and reduce adipose tissue. Eat whole, unprocessed foods, limit the high-fat snacks and don’t expect to change everything overnight. Start with one habit to see long-term success. Practice the 5 Ways to Be a Better Fat Burner and stay healthy.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla