eli5: Why will the body continue to store excess fat to the point where it jeopardizes the person’s health?

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I understand food wasn’t always so abundant, and humans were well served to store excess consumed energy as fat for later use. What I don’t understand is why the body keeps storing fat to the point where a person becomes morbidly obese and it puts their entire health at risk. Why isn’t there a point where the body just let’s the extra calories pass through without saving for later?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

We evolved when there wasn’t much stuff to eat. So our bodies got good at staying alive on not much food.

We haven’t (yet) had time to evolve to deal with too much food. So we get fat, and unhealthy because our bodies aren’t set up to deal with it and still act as though a famine might be coming.

Give it some thousands of years, and we may well evolve to deal with too much food.

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