Fat is an essential nutrient for a healthy body. It provides a source of energy, stores fat soluble vitamins, controls body temperature by providing a layer of insulation, and protects the vital organs of the body. Children should get their fat by eating a variety of foods from the five food groups and not be restricting foods for their fat content. This will assure proper growth and development.

Although scarcer than carbohydrates, fats produce more than twice as much energy. Being a compact fuel, fat is efficiently stored in the body for later use when carbohydrates are in short supply. Animals obviously need stored fat to tide them over dry or cold seasons, as do humans during times of scarce food supply. In industrial nations such as the U.S., however, with food always available and with machines replacing human labor, the accumulation of body fat has become a serious health concern.

In a way similar to that in which protein is broken down by digestive enzymes into amino acids to form the body's proteins, dietary fats are broken down into fatty acids that pass into the blood to form the body's own triglycerides. The fatty acids that contain as many hydrogen atoms as possible on the carbon chain are called saturated fatty acids and are derived mostly from animal sources. Unsaturated fatty acids are those having some of the hydrogen atoms missing; this group includes monounsaturated fatty acids, which have a single pair of hydrogens missing, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, which have more than one pair missing. Polyunsaturated fats are found mostly in seed oils. Saturated fats in the bloodstream have been found to raise the level of cholesterol (q.v.) , and polyunsaturated fat tends to lower it. Saturated fats generally are solid at room temperature; polyunsaturated fats are liquid. Trans-fat is also another type a fat.

Calories

A calorie is a unit that measures heat. Heat is energy. A calorie is used to tell the amount of energy contained in certain foods. To tell how many calories are in certain foods scientists have to burn the food in a Bomb Calorimeter. Then they measure the heat that was produced. The amount of heat is measured in calories. This is the caloric content of that particular food.

1. When you eat more calories than you use, the extra energy is stored as fat.
2. If you use more calories than you eat, some stored fat will be used up.
3. If you eat the same amount of calories as you use, there will be no change in the stored fat.