THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

After years of studying obesity, Simeons identified three kinds of fat in the human body. Two of them are normal and essential. The third is both inessential and abnormal. Only the inessential, abnormal fat creates obesity.

You can easily identify the difference when you look under a microscope. The first kind of normal fat – also known as visceral or structural fat – acts like upholstery or packing-material to cushion our internal organs. It guards delicate structures such as the bladder, the spleen, the kidneys and the eyeballs by embedding them in soft elastic tissue. It also protects the coronary arteries, helps keep the skin firm and smooth and creates the vital cushion of firm fat under the heels of the feet without which we would be unable to walk without pain.

A second variety of normal fat is evenly distributed throughout the body. It provides an equally important reserve of energy so that, when there is a lack of food or a famine, we are able to call on this reserve to fuel our metabolism and keep us going. Both these fats – structural and reserve – are important to the well-being of any man or woman. And even if your body chooses to store these essential fats to capacity, this will never make you obese. A healthy, well-fed body can function perfectly well for a limited time subsisting only on its normal fat reserves.

The third kind of inessential and abnormal fat you see in the build-up of the adipose deposits which distort our bodies. It creates beer bellies on men and spreading waistlines, thighs and bottoms on women. It is these inessential fat deposits which result in obesity. Theoretically one would expect this kind of fat to function as a "reserve of fuel" just as normal fat does. The problem is that in people with a tendency to gain weight, this non-essential fat gets "locked away" beyond reach so that, even when your body needs energy, you are unable to access it.

When we go on slimming diets, or on fasts, instead of being able to tap into this kind of inessential fat, we often shed our normal reserves as well. This is one reason yo-yo dieters suffer such frustration. What's worse, if we stay on one of these diets, this can result in a loss of essential, structural fat, undermining our health.

When it comes to a chronically overweight or obese body, the normal mechanisms of fat storage and fat burning have become grossly distorted. Simeons liked to describe this phenomenon using a simile which likens body fat to money: Our essential fat supply — the structural and reserve fats – are like our possessions – homes, cars, gold, money, belongings. The inessential fat which the body stores should behave as excess income. It would be great if it did – if we were able to draw on it for energy whenever we needed it. But in the case of someone overweight or who gains weight easily, a distortion in the body's fat management system prevents their being able to turn this fat into energy. Instead, it gets locked away in what Simeons refers to as a "deposit account", rendering the potential energy it holds unavailable. The implications of this are vast. For an overweight man or woman this creates a situation in which, although he or she feels hungry, much of what is eaten in an attempt to quell that hunger gets turned into fat and stashed away beyond reach. Therefore eating food often doesn't assuage their hunger. Nor does it provide the energy they long for. As a result they can remain low in vitality yet still crave more food. This produces a vicious cycle: Hunger leads to more eating, the storing of more fat, and the perpetuation of cravings which are never satisfied.