why doesn't my body dump all the fat, since I'm eating a surplus of calories anyway? That's a great research question. Normally, the body tries to maintain a h

why doesn't my body dump all the fat, since I'm eating a surplus of calories anyway? That's a great research question. Normally, the body tries to maintain a happy "set point" of fat. However, different genetic populations (who may have historically gone through more famine) are more inclined to save fat than dump it relative to others. Researchers suspect that there is some mechanism that may be going awry due to our modern diet/lifestyle. Fat makes a protein called leptin; the more leptin in our body, the fatter we must be. So why is our body not properly measuring how much leptin is in our bloodstream and thus thinking it is skinnier than it really is? Answer that and you will both win a Nobel Prize and become a very rich person.