Low fat? No fat? Try more fat. Dietary fats are essential for maintaining good overall health, especially as you age. “Your body needs a regular intake of fat,” says Vasanti Malik, a research scientist with the Department of Nutrition at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Fat helps give your body energy, protects your organs, supports cell growth, keeps cholesterol and blood pressure under control, and helps your body absorb vital nutrients. When you focus too much on cutting out all fat, you can actually deprive your body of what it needs most.”
Why we need some fat
A small amount of fat is an essential part of a healthy, balanced diet. Fat is a source of essential fatty acids, which the body cannot make itself.
Fat helps the body absorb vitamin A, vitamin D and vitamin E. These vitamins are fat-soluble, which means they can only be absorbed with the help of fats.
Any fat that’s not used by your body’s cells or turned into energy is converted into body fat. Likewise, unused carbohydrates and proteins are also converted into body fat.
All types of fat are high in energy. A gram of fat, whether it’s saturated or unsaturated, provides 9kcal (37kJ) of energy compared with 4kcal (17kJ) for carbohydrate and protein.
The main types of fat found in food are:
- saturated fats
- unsaturated fats
Most fats and oils contain both saturated and unsaturated fats in different proportions. As part of a healthy diet, you should try to cut down on foods and drinks that are high in saturated fats and trans fats and replace some of them with unsaturated fats.
Here are 10 facts about fats that you may not have known.
- Fats are a type of nutrient in food. Fats are important for growth, development, energy, and more.
- There are many different kinds of fats — some of which are very important for good health.
- Breaking down foods, including fats, so that the body can use them requires substances called digestive enzymes, which are normally produced in the pancreas, an organ in the body.
- Different kinds of enzymes play different roles in breaking down foods into the forms that the body can use.
- The form of fat that is used in enteral tube feeding formulas is called triglycerides. However, the body cannot absorb some triglycerides until digestive enzymes break them down into other forms called fatty acids and monoglycerides.
- Fatty acids and monoglycerides are forms of fat that the body can easily absorb and use for energy and other health benefits.
- Omega-3 fats are important fats that provide energy (calories) and other important health benefits. Omega-3 fatty acids are important for normal development and growth.
- When fats are not broken down, it can result in getting fewer calories or not enough calories or not getting enough of certain kinds of fats (such as omega-3 fats, which are important for normal growth and development), as well as in not being able to gain or maintain weight, losing weight, or having lower levels of some vitamins.
- Lipases are enzymes that are normally made in the body to break down (digest) fats (triglycerides) into an absorbable form (fatty acids and monoglycerides).
- If you have a health condition in which your body does not produce enough digestive enzymes or produces digestive enzymes that do not work properly, you may need to get these digestive enzymes from another source.
