The Function Of Fat In The Body

The Function Of Fat In The Body

With so much focus always placed on losing weight and dropping body fat, often we completely overlook the fact that body fat does play some key roles in the body and is necessary for good health.

While you definitely don’t want to be carrying around and excessive amount of body fat, if you start to take your body fat too low, that's definitely going to cause you to experience some serious problems as well.

Let's have a quick look at all the different functions on fat in the body so that you can understand more about this often hated body tissue.

Reproductive Function

One of the first things to note about body fat is the fact that women will have higher overall essential levels of body fat compared to males and this is strictly due to the fact that the female body needs to be capable to give birth to a baby.

Fat stores in the body are going to help to maintain better hormonal concentrations that support the development of a baby and will also signal to the body that it has a lot of stored up energy should starvation set in during the pregnancy period.

When women start to take their body fat levels too low, their menstrual cycle will stop and this indicates that they are not able to give birth any longer until it's brought back upwards again.

Appetite Regulation

Another role that fat plays in the body is to regulate the appetite. The body has strong defence mechanisms that kick in during periods of prolonged undereating that will prompt you to begin eating so that your body weight doesn't drop down to an unhealthy and unsafe level.

This regulation is brought on by hormones that are produced within the fat cells that will signal to the brain the current level of body fat in the body.

Without body fat tissue, you would feel very little satiety after eating a meal and would instantly become hungry.

This is often why when dieting, the leaner you get after a period of being on that diet, the more you're going to feel hunger taking place. At this point the body isn't making as much of these hormones that regulate appetite, therefore the brain is going to prompt you to start eating more.

Insulin

Another important role that body fat plays in the body is that it will help to provide insulin during colder weather so that you don't freeze to death. This is again why after a period of successful dieting you may notice that you feel quite a bit cooler at any given temperature than you used to – you have less insulin present to keep you warm.

Protection

Finally, the last big role that body fat plays in the body is that it will help to protect all the vital organs as it acts as a cushion.  If you're struck with something in the abdominal cavity and have very little body fat, there is a much greater chance of injury than if you do have some fat present.

So as you can see, while you definitely don't want too much fat as that will pose negative health problems, some fat is definitely necessary.