Protein may steal the spotlight on supermarket shelves, while carbohydrates dominate the conversation around high-intensity exercise — but there is one macronutrient we have yet to talk about that keeps us functioning healthily: dietary fat. Despite certain dietary approaches (such as the ketogenic diet) putting fats front and centre as the primary energy source, this macronutrient receives little mainstream attention, which raises an interesting question: why is dietary fat the forgotten part of the macronutrient conversation?
What dietary fat actually does
Dietary fat is a macronutrient found in foods such as nuts, seeds, oils, some meats, and dairy products. It is well known as the most calorically dense of the family, providing the largest amount of energy per gram consumed (Jeukendrup & Gleeson, 2023). But beyond its energy provision, one of the most important roles of fats in our body is one most of us do not really discuss.
One of the early lessons in cell biology is that the protective layer of a cell is a lipid bilayer (Dingjan & Futerman, 2021). What that means is that each cell is surrounded by a membrane of primarily lipids, which protects the cell, controls what enters and exits, and provides flexibility for the cell’s movement.
Beyond this, some of the vitamins essential for healthy living are fat-soluble: vitamins A, D, E, and K are absorbed better alongside a dietary fat source and can be stored in adipose tissue (Youness et al., 2022). All in all, these factors suggest that dietary fats should play an essential role in our daily lifestyle to keep us healthy and running.
So then, why are fats not as marketed as protein or as talked about as carbohydrates in sports nutrition?
Why fat doesn’t sell (and why sport ignores it)
The answer is tied to the role each macronutrient plays. Dietary fats are essential to healthy living, and without health, human performance will inevitably drop. However, it is much more difficult to market dietary fat intake compared to protein intake, because there is no easy visual hook — nothing as tangible as muscle growth or recovery. On that basis, it is easier for a nutrition company to market products related to muscle growth, repair, and recovery — which can already be framed as “healthy”. As a marketing tool, dietary fats are simply not as profitable as proteins in the current nutrition climate. In fact, successful food marketing has for years pushed in the opposite direction — the “low-fat” products that lined store shelves and, to some extent, still do.
Still, marketing is only part of the explanation. The other reason lies in the demands of high-performance sport. Dietary fats are simply a less efficient fuel source compared to carbohydrates during high-intensity exercise (Krogh & Lindhard, 1920). Previous studies have shown that high-fat diets are not beneficial for performance in high-level athletes (Burke et al., 2017). Therefore, carbohydrates dominate sports nutrition strategies around competition and hard training.
Given that it plays its part in the background, dietary fat is currently in the position of Atlas, holding up an essential piece of human health much like the Titan holding up the heavens — indispensable, but rarely thanked.
The exceptions that prove the rule
Dietary fat is somewhat under-discussed in the current climate, with marketing focused on protein and high-performance attention on carbohydrates. Even so, there are exceptions: certain food products, rich in dietary fat, that get labelled as superfoods. In the recent past, avocado has been a highly discussed product — and so have chia seeds, for example. Those exceptions are further proof that when fat gets its moment in the spotlight, the message resonates.
The bottom line
Dietary fat may seem like the forgotten macronutrient in marketing and sports nutrition conversations, but its role in our health and well-being is undeniable. It may not have the marketing power of protein or the energy-provision efficiency of carbohydrates, but it is a decisive factor in our health and well-being. Therefore, it is important to differentiate between marketing hype, high-performance focus, and healthy human living.
Dietary fat is not forgotten because it lacks importance — but because its greatest contributions happen quietly, in the background of the other macronutrients. It may be the “quietest” of the macronutrients in today’s nutrition conversations, but dietary fat remains one of the pillars of a healthy lifestyle.
📚 This is article #8 — the final piece in our macronutrient series. Explore the rest: Carbohydrate types · Why we rely on carbs during exercise · Are carbohydrates the problem? · Animal vs plant-based protein · How much protein should we consume?
References
Burke, L. M., Ross, M. L., Garvican-Lewis, L. A., Welvaert, M., Heikura, I. A., Forbes, S. G., Mirtschin, J. G., Cato, L. E., Strobel, N., Sharma, A. P., & Hawley, J. A. (2017). Low carbohydrate, high fat diet impairs exercise economy and negates the performance benefit from intensified training in elite race walkers. The Journal of Physiology, 595(9), 2785–2807.
Dingjan, T., & Futerman, A. H. (2021). The role of the ‘sphingoid motif’ in shaping the molecular interactions of sphingolipids in biomembranes. Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) — Biomembranes, 1863(11), 183701.
Jeukendrup, A., & Gleeson, M. (2023). Sport nutrition (4th ed.). Human Kinetics.
Krogh, A., & Lindhard, J. (1920). The relative value of fat and carbohydrate as sources of muscular energy. Biochemical Journal, 14(3–4), 290–363.
Youness, R. A., Dawoud, A., ElTahtawy, O., & Farag, M. A. (2022). Fat-soluble vitamins: updated review of their role and orchestration in human nutrition throughout life cycle with sex differences. Nutrition & Metabolism, 19(1), 60.