THAT'S THE WHY:YOU CAN'T have missed the message that being obese is not good for your health. Not only can it put pressure on your joints and make it harder to move around, but too much fat, especially in the belly, is linked with an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer.
But how? Fat cells might look like inert blobs of storage just sitting there doing nothing, but in fact they are active little chatters, and fat cells in the abdomen in particular do a lot of “talking” to various systems in the body. Fat is, in effect, an organ.
In obesity – medically defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of more than 30 – your fat finds it harder to soak up the extra energy that you take in.
Fat acts as a kind of sponge for the excess calories you eat or drink – but when you have too much fat (are overweight or obese), your fat can’t handle the extra calories as well, and the signals it trades with other body systems change.
For example, fat cells can become less responsive to insulin, the hormone that normally tells them to convert and store excess sugar in the blood. This can result in your blood sugar levels being poorly controlled, which in turn can damage your blood vessels.
Fat can also become inflamed in obesity, with some cells of the immune system moving from your blood into the fat tissue. Your defences against disease may go down too – a recent study from University College Dublin showed that very obese people had fewer and less active “natural killer” cells in their blood to fight viruses and tumour cells.
With an estimated two-thirds of adults in Ireland now overweight and close to 25 per cent being defined as obese, that’s a whole lot of chronic stress on the nation’s bodies.
- CLAIRE O’CONNELL
