Why is fat important in the body, know its importance

Why is fat important in the body, know its importance

Author, Melissa Hogenboom

Designation, Senior Health Reporter

Published 9 minutes ago

Reading Time: 11 minutes

For many years, fat has been considered bad for health. In diet related advice, emphasis is laid on reducing it. Some food companies sell low-fat products and online weightlifting forums offer tips on how to reduce body fat.

The fat present in the body performs many important functions, from producing hormones to controlling body temperature. In such a situation, why can trying to reduce body fat too much be so bad for health?

After spending some time on social media, you start getting advice on making your body 'shredded'. This means a body in which the muscles appear very clear and prominent.

Now experts are worried that the trend of looking extremely thin is returning once again. In some cases, the increasing popularity of weight loss drugs is also promoting this.

Having too much fat in the body can harm health and lead to obesity. But having too little fat is also not good for us.

Many experts told me that trying to completely eliminate body fat could be harmful on both a biological and social level.

"We should love our fat. It has a very important biological function in our bodies," says Elif Oral, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the University of Michigan.

But the question is, how much fat do we really need? Why is having very little body fat bad for us?

Why is body fat important?

Generally there are two types of fat. First, the fat present in the food and second, the fat stored in the body.

The fat present in food is that which we get from food. Fat stored in the body is a natural way of conserving energy that the body does not need immediately.

When we eat food, the fats, carbohydrates and proteins present in it are broken down into simple elements that the body can use for energy.

Carbohydrates are converted into glucose, proteins into amino acids and fats into fatty acids.

If a person consistently consumes more calories than his or her body needs, fat cells store these excess nutrients as lipids. These fat cells are called adipocytes. Due to accumulation of fat, the size of these cells starts increasing.

Earlier it was believed that the fat deposited in the body only remained there. But now we know that it works like an active organ and controls many functions of the body.

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Like the story of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', our body works best when there is neither too little nor too much of anything. Like too much fat, too little fat is also dangerous for health.

Professor Mikael Reiden, who conducts clinical and experimental research on fat tissue at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, says that body fat can be thought of as a special vault that stores nutrients.

When the body has plenty of energy, this safe stores nutrients. These nutrients are taken out when needed. This system helped our ancestors survive during food shortages.

Another important function of the fat stored in the body is to send messages between different parts of the body.

Fat cells make hormones that tell the rest of the body how much energy we have and how full we are.

Oral says that among these, most of the studies have been done on the hormone named leptin.

She says, "Leptin tells the brain that there is enough energy stored in the body. After this the brain can stop worrying in a way."

This allows the body to focus on important biological processes like reproduction and fighting infection.

If there is no leptin, the brain starts worrying about the energy available in the body. After this, the important functions of the body also start getting less priority.

Fat is also necessary to keep the body warm.

White fat stores extra energy and also acts as a layer to protect the body from cold.

At the same time, brown and beige fat contains special cells that burn energy to produce heat. This helps the body maintain its temperature.

What happens when there is too little body fat?

There is a lot of information available about the harms of having too much body fat.

This can increase the risk of heart and blood vessel related diseases, type-2 diabetes, some types of cancer and osteoarthritis. However, having too little fat in the body is also not good.

Jessica Mong, who is researching metabolic diseases at the University of Michigan, says that reducing calories too much can drastically reduce body fat. This can have a serious impact on health and the way the body functions.

She says, "Having too little fat tissue in the body impairs the functioning of organs and the body."

When the fat in the body becomes very low, it starts trying to save energy. In simple language, the body reaches such a state as if it has not received enough food for a long time.

After this many systems of the body start stopping working. These also include our immune system that fights infection.

When the energy stored in the body gets exhausted, it starts breaking down the muscles and taking energy from them. The formation and repair of bones also starts to stop.

Frederick Carpe, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Oxford, says that this weakens the body and increases the risk of breaking bones.

"This is not a healthy situation," he says.

A major reason for this is that the body has no reserves of energy left to face serious infection or any other medical emergency.

Having too little fat in the body can also affect hormones and reproductive health.

Testosterone levels can drop in men who have become extremely thin due to eating less than required for a long time. Their energy and physical performance may also decrease.

Some female athletes with very little body fat may have periods that become irregular or stop altogether.

Several studies have found that a little extra weight in middle age and older can increase the chances of survival during serious illness.

For example, people living with obesity have a higher risk of heart and blood vessel disease. But if they contract this disease, their risk of death may be less compared to lean people suffering from the same disease. This is called 'Obesity Paradox'.

According to Oral, excess fat stored in the body can help in combating serious heart disease, stroke and other serious sudden diseases.

In extreme cases, having too little body fat can cause long-term health harm and even lead to death.

For example, a mental health condition called anorexia nervosa can cause long-term organ damage or even death.

How much fat do we really need?

Measuring your body fat accurately is more difficult than expected. This has been explained in detail further.

There is no single percentage of body fat that can be considered right for all people. Every person's needs are different.

Still, broadly speaking, healthy adult men usually have 10 to 20 percent fat in their bodies.

In healthy adult women this quantity is usually 20 to 29 percent.

People living with obesity usually have more than 30 percent fat in their body.

"It's very difficult to set a specific range for what the optimal amount of body fat should be," says Readen.

They say that this quantity may differ between different people, men and women and different ethnic groups.

Players usually have less fat in their bodies than other people.

Tamara Hugh-Butler, a sports performance researcher at Detroit's Wayne State University, and her colleagues examined the bodies of more than 700 athletes using a DEXA scanner.

With DEXA scan, body composition and fat present can be measured.

Hugh-Butler says, "Among the players we examined, the lowest amount of body fat found for a male player was 10 percent and for a female player it was 16 percent."

He says that some players were surprised to see this result. The players in the study trained regularly and believed they had only one to two percent body fat.

Along with the total amount of fat in the body, it also matters where it is deposited.

Visceral fat is also called fat stored inside the abdomen. It can be especially harmful if its quantity is too high.

Unlike the fat stored under the skin, visceral fat accumulates around the vital internal organs of the body.

It releases chemicals that increase inflammation in the body and can increase blood pressure. These chemicals also interfere with the functioning of insulin.

This makes it difficult for the body to control blood sugar and increases the risk of type-2 diabetes.

How can body fat be measured?

There are some ways to measure the amount of fat in the body. The most detailed information is obtained from Dexa full body scan. It can tell the difference between fat stored in the body, muscles without fat and bone mass.

However, this requires specialist equipment and can be expensive. A popular test done at home is the 'skinfold test'.

In this, the thickness of the fat layer immediately beneath it is measured by pressing the skin with a specially made tweezers-like instrument. This instrument is called caliper.

However, this device can measure the thickness of the fat layer only in certain areas of the body. Due to this, the visceral fat deposited around the organs inside the abdomen cannot be measured directly.

Skinfold tests are not very accurate. Due to these, the amount of fat may appear less than the actual level.

Another way to measure fat at home is to use a smart weighing machine. These machines estimate the amount of fat by sending a very light electric current into the body.

But their readings are affected by how much fluid is present in the body. Therefore, they are not considered accurate for measuring fat levels.

These machines cannot even tell in which part of the body the fat is deposited. They also cannot differentiate between visceral fat and other types of fat.

To maintain a healthy body, it is generally not necessary to measure body fat in such detail.

However, two types of measurements can help you maintain a healthy weight and understand where fat is being stored.

An easy estimate of this can be made with a measuring tape. Waist to height ratio tells how much fat is stored in the middle part of a person compared to his height.

A ratio greater than 0.90 in men and greater than 0.85 in women is considered high. Excess fat accumulation around the waist can be a sign of poor metabolic health.

Body mass index i.e. BMI does not provide accurate information about body fat. This is because BMI cannot differentiate between body fat and muscle.

People with a lot of muscle and very little fat may also have a high BMI.

With increasing age, there may be a need to pay more attention to body structure.

As we age, body fat usually increases, while muscles and bones begin to weaken.

This can have a bad effect on health. Therefore, it is important to eat well, exercise regularly and do strength-building exercises.

However, we must understand that body fat performs many important functions for us. One should not be obsessed with the goal of reducing fat too much.

Instead of trying to minimize body fat, it is important to have the right amount of fat.

In the words of Oral, "We believe that fat is strong and beautiful."

Melissa Hogenboom is the BBC's senior health correspondent. She has written books named 'Breadwinners' and 'The Motherhood Complex'. Her account on Instagram is with the name melissa_hogenboom.