It is well established that if you eat too much fat and calories you will tend to increase your stores of body fat; in other words get fat. This is mainly because dietary fats tend to be more easily stored as fat than carbs or proteins. However, scientists have determined that the KIND of fat you eat can effect the composition of your body at the cellular level. Fatty acids are an essential part of all cellular membranes, but the fatty acid content of the body varies greatly and is dependent on your diet. For example, individuals that eat a higher amount of essential fatty acids, mostly from vegetable fat sources, tend to have higher amounts of these more desirable fatty acids as structural components of the cell membranes and fat stores. Individuals eating diets high in saturated fats, low in essential fats, and high in excess calories, ten to have a lower percentage of their body composed of essential fats. The significance of this is that people with more of their body composed of essential fats are less prone to degenerative diseases. Additionally, tissues higher in essential fats are healthier, particularly the skin. Most athletes take this for granted. They wrongly assume that because they are in shape and burning a lot of calories, the bad fats and cholesterol are of no consequence to them. You might not get fat eating that way while you're an athlete (or intensely consistently training), but years down the road, your cardiovascular system will fall apart from the nutritional abuse