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

For the most part, animals don’t have a mechanism to just magically “burn” excess fat. And that’s because in a natural setting, most animals struggle to accumulate food, not struggle to shed excess weight.

The excess weight part is generally solved by a lack of fitness which means increased chance of being injured/killed by predators.

Humans have no natural predators which eliminates that issue.

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