Fat does not make you fat. On the contrary, dietary fat has the ability to reduce dangerous LDL cholesterol and increase weight loss, muscle strength, and your improve cognitive abilities.

America's obsession with low fat foods is baffling. For the past thirty years we've been growing fatter and sicker every day, with no hope in sight. But it doesn't have to be that way. 

Look around, what are overweight people eating? What are overweight people doing that is so very different from what we did 30 years ago? To be honest, people are not eating that much more food, nor are they exercising less than they did years ago. On the contrary, it seems everyone I know is dieting and exercising, but getting no where.

These folks are not changing their bodies because they haven't changed their food types. What made them fat (low fat/high carb foods) are the very foods they ought to be avoiding (sorry Special K).

You see, food type is much more important to our health than total calories. This is because all calories are not created equal. Specifically, carbohydrates are transformed into sugar when ingested and stored as saturated fat in our cells. Protein builds strong muscles, bones, and immune system function. And healthy fats teach our bodies to burn stored fat as fuel, boost brain function, and nourish our hair, skin, and nails.

The one thing we can live without is carbohydrate. Whereas, protein and fat are essential to life.

Check out this informative article on the benefits of dietary fat from Slate.

Large population-based studies are, too. A 2006 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, based on data collected from 82,802 women, found that the subjects who consumed the highest percentage of their daily calories from fat (including saturated fat) did not experience an increased risk of developing heart disease later in life. In fact, women who ate the highest amounts of vegetable fat—from foods like olive oil and nuts—had lower risks of heart disease than women on low-fat diets. A meta-analysis co-authored by Krauss and published in the March 2010 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition compared the reported food intakes of nearly 350,000 men and women with their cardiovascular health years later and also found no connection between saturated fat intake and heart or vascular disease.

Watching the glycemic index of foods? Here we see the lower, the better.

In a 2000 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Harvard researchers compared the food intakes of 75,521 women with their health over the course of a decade and found that the quintile of women who ate food with the highest glycemic load—a measure that incorporates portion size—had twice the risk of developing heart disease than the quintile who ate food with the lowest glycemic load. A 2008 meta-analysis of 37 studies reported a significant association between intake of high glycemic index foods and increased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, gallbladder disease, and breast cancer.

And here is the kicker; LDL (bad) cholesterol lowers on a high fat diet and HDL (good) cholesterol rises on it!

The link between carbohydrates and heart disease is also supported by LDL particle data. In a 2008 study published in Nutrition Research, researchers reported that subjects who followed high-fat, low-carb diets for eight weeks experienced a 46 percent drop in blood concentrations of small LDL particles, while those who followed a high-carb, low-fat diet experienced a 36 percent spike in them. What's more, processed carbohydrates lower "good" HDL cholesterol, whereas saturated fat increases it.

In conclusion:

In any case, it seems that processed carbohydrates are America's most deserving nutritional enemy. And our misguided war against fat has just made us more addicted to them, because when people cut out fat, they typically turn to "diet" foods high in carbs—SnackWells, Baked Lays, even low-fat Jif, which contains the same number of calories as the regular version, with less peanut butter and more "corn syrup solids." That's not to say that all carbs are bad; fiber is a carbohydrate, and an important one. And there is still a lot left to be desired about certain fats. Trans fats really are bad for you, and foods very high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats—such as corn oil and margarine—are not particularly healthy, either. But overall, Americans could stand to start replacing carbs with fat. More bacon, fewer Bacos.

Touche'