Fat is therefore necessary for the body . But our bodies only need a certain amount of it. It is when too much fat is present that we become overweight. In fact the method is sufficiently reliable for life assurance companies to be guided by its results. The number of such diseases is pretty frightening and is the subject of the next page .
People sometimes ask what is the difference between overweight, fat and obese .
The answer is really quite simple. Since overweight is due to the presence of too much fat, 'overweight' and 'fat' mean the same. The word 'obese' is perhaps not quite so straightforward. It is derived from the Latin word, obesus, which means 'that has eaten itself fat', and according to the Oxford English Dictionary means very fat or fleshy, or corpulent. Some authorities therefore consider the distinction between overweight and obese simply a matter of degree.