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

Question

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?

In: 1194

Answer 1

Because the human body doesn’t understand the concept of excess fat. That has literally never been an evolutionary pressure we’ve had to deal with before now. Evolution generally doesn’t create countermeasures for never before seen problems.