Explain about the Adipose tissue - energy balance?
At this point, it will not be irrelevant to consider how exactly an increase in the fat depot takes place. For understanding obesity better, it is important for you to know that fat is stored as triglyceride in fat depots made up of adipose tissue. A normal adult woman has about 20% to 25% of her body weight as fat while in men appropriate body fatness is 12% to 15% of body weight. When we put on weight, there is an increase in the adipose tissue. This may either be a result of hypertrophy or hyperplasia of adipocytes (fat cells) or a combination of the two processes. Hypertrophy means increase in the size of adipocytes already present in the body while an increase in their number is known as hyperplasia. As an adult we put on weight mostly by hypertrophy of fat cells although in some forms of obesity hyperplasia may also be there. Hyperplasia basically occurs during infancy and adolescence as a part of growth process. Fat cell size decreases when we lose weight for any reason but weight loss does not involve a decrease in the number of adipocytes.