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

Because the body doesn’t know the difference. You don’t have a secondary conscious brain that can go ‘THIS is survival, this is not’

Brain doesn’t know when to stop, basically.

It is a biological mechanism: store fat for food.

Brain doesn’t know what overweight is. Brain isn’t a computer like we say. It’s a biological mechanism.

That’s why you can suffer brain damage that kills your personality or ability to speak or be functional but body will keep processing nutrients.

That’s it. Brain has no way of differentiating. If YOU, consciousness, the Ego, etc, eats food, body stores fat.

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