Research
Mixed
The evolution of human fat storage levels is driven by a trade-off between starvation risk and predation risk, resulting in an optimum fatness that minimizes total mortality, not maximum fat storage.
Your body stores fat to balance survival needs (starvation) against survival costs (predation/mobility). This explains why we don't store maximum possible fat; there is an evolutionary optimum.
GoodSupportsMEDIUM confidence
The level of fat animals should carry is, therefore, a compromise between having enough to get through periodic food shortages, but not so much that it greatly increases the risk of predation.
Why this rating
Based on theoretical modeling and comparative biology across species.
Source
Models of body weight and fatness regulation
John R. Speakman et al. · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · 2023
DOI 10.1098/rstb.2022.0231
narrative_reviewCited 24×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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