Have we become a generation afraid of fats?

Ever since the beginning of industrialization how we perceived food has changed, both in terms of its components the way it looks like. It could be argued that with the onset of industry, people eat more processed food which contains a lot of disguised fats. As a result, numerous products declared as “low- fat”, “fat -free”, “light”, “reduced fat” etc. seem to have flood the market over the recent years. However, since being fit is another trend of the recent years, some people have gone the other extreme – they’ve become afraid of fats. Do you think it is right thing to do? Surely, excess fat is an excess fat, especially when considering those disguised fats, but there are those who wrongly interpret this message and cannot seem to drop their fear of fats, they’ve become obsessed with the foods they eat. Do you go to such extremes as to shy away from touching foods that might have been in contact with fat? Are you that kind of person who always complaints about their food and the amount of greasiness in it when ordering in a restaurant or a similar place? If not, maybe all this would seem trivial to you, but believe me, to people who are burdened with this matter things are certainly not running that easy. Low-fat diets, including healthy fat restricted diets are essential if you wish to lead a healthy way of life, but any extreme can lead to some awkward situations, to say the least, like the one when eating in company. On the one hand you should be aware of the fact that a certain amount of fat is acceptable and it really is possible to maintain a perfect weight, while still sometimes enjoy the “forbidden fruit”, i.e. food which contains some amounts of fat. On the other hand you need to know that complete or partial elimination of fat from your diet will not necessarily result in decrease of body mass index, especially not in a short time. You must have met some people who are very strict when it comes to the amount of fat in their diet, still, they seem to be bad at loosing a few pounds. What do you think is the main reason for this? The answer is actually pretty clear, those people simply give in to the low-fat products and compensate those calories because they misunderstand the concept “fat-free” and perceive it as “calorie-free” so they tend to overeat. Therefore, if some product is said to have very small amount of fat, this doesn’t mean it has no energy value, i.e. calories. Do you think it is worse to eat one “regular” cookie as opposed to 10 fat-free cookies? Remember, we are talking about 50 calories for the first case and 350 for the second. Enough said. Just bear in mind, calories, regardless of their source, are still calories, and energy which is not spent is stored as fat.

L. Rađa