Talk:Fat/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Fat. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Saturation Inaccuracy

This section of the artcile says: "A fat's constituent fatty acids may also differ in the number of hydrogen atoms that branch off of the chain of carbon atoms. Each carbon atom is typically bonded to two hydrogen atoms. When a fatty acid has this typical arrangement, it is called "saturated", because the carbon atoms are saturated with hydrogen; meaning they are bonded to as many hydrogens as they possibly could be. In other fats, a carbon atom may instead bond to only one other hydrogen atom, and have a double bond to a neighboring carbon atom. This results in an "unsaturated" fatty acid. A fat containing only saturated fatty acids is itself called saturated. A fat containing at least one unsaturated fatty acid is called unsaturated, and a fat containing more than one unsaturated fatty acid is called polyunsaturated."

All right, I'm not too sure how to go about this without it sounding too complicated. First off, I think I'll need to define the difference between "monounsaturated" fatty acid and "polyunsaturated" fatty acid since it will be needed eventually anyways. So this part that says: "a carbon atom may instead bond to only one other hydrogen atom, and have a double bond to a neighboring carbon atom. This results in an "unsaturated" fatty acid." That would be an unsaturated fatty acid, yes. More specifically though, that would be a "monounsaturated" fatty acid. A "polyunsaturated" fatty acid would have MORE than 1 double bond. This may not sound so significant but it is important information for what I will get into.

This part says: "A fat containing only saturated fatty acids is itself called saturated." This is where it gets tricky. You see, a fat is generally synonymous with triglyceride within this body. However, fat within food encompasses all fatty acids regardless where they come from. Therefore, to say that a saturated fat is a fat containing only saturated fatty acids would be inaccurate. If that was referring to fat as a triglyceride, well then, triglycerides are not measured in such a way. Even though a triglyceride can certainly have all 3 of its fatty acids be saturated, it still would not be called a "saturated fat" or even a "saturated triglyceride". I'll further demonstrate this point. This other part says: "A fat containing at least one unsaturated fatty acid is called unsaturated, and a fat containing more than one unsaturated fatty acid is called polyunsaturated." Polyunsaturated is not defined by how many of the fatty acids are unsaturated in a fat. However, that statement leads me to believe it is referring to triglycerides. I mean, if you think about, if you have 900 fatty acids in a source of fat, what are the chances of all of those fatty acids being unsaturated? So if 899 of them were and 1 was saturated, then it could not be defined as a polyunsaturated fat? Then again, if it is indeed referring to triglycerides then I still stand by what I said earlier, that triglycerides are not measured in saturation. Only a source of fat is. I'll try to clairfy myself a bit more still. This part says: "a fat containing more than one unsaturated fatty acid is called polyunsaturated." Well, what if it only had a single unsaturated fatty acid but it was actually a polyunsaturated fatty acid, would it still only be considered an unsaturated fat?

When it comes to defining fat as saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated, it does not refer to fat as triglyceride. Instead, it only refers to fat as all the fatty acids within a source. Therefore, such definitions are not used when referring to the triglycerides within ones body, it's only used when speaking of food, more specifically, on food labels. In which case, I'll tell how it would be defined.

Saturated Fat - The amount of Saturated Fatty Acids within a source of Fat.

Monounsaturated Fat - The amount of Monounsaturated Fatty Acids within a source of Fat.

Polyunsaturated Fat - The amount of Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids within a source of Fat.

I guess my argument is that, if triglycerides really are defined by their saturation, why are they defined in terms of "saturated, unsaturated, and polyunsaturated" while fatty acids are defined in terms of "saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated"? Furthermore, why would it still be referred to as fat when it's obvious that such naming would cause confusion with the food labeling system? That's why I believe that triglycerides are NOT named in terms of their saturation and only fat in general is! (Fat in general meaning the term used on food labeling which encompasses all fatty acids.) And the person who wrote that stuff may have had some confusion on how such things are properly defined.

Therefore, I am changing that section of the article to: "A fat's constituent fatty acids may also differ in the number of hydrogen atoms that branch off of the chain of carbon atoms. Each carbon atom is typically bonded to two hydrogen atoms. When a fatty acid has this typical arrangement, it is called "saturated", because the carbon atoms are saturated with hydrogen; meaning they are bonded to as many hydrogens as they possibly could be. In other fats, a carbon atom may instead bond to only one other hydrogen atom, and have a double bond to a neighboring carbon atom. This results in an "unsaturated" fatty acid. More specifically, it would be a "monounsaturated" fatty acid. Whereas, a "polyunsaturated" fatty acid would be a fatty acid with more than 1 double bond."

I don't think it is necessary to get into how to define a Saturated Fat, Monounsaturated Fat, and Polyunsaturated Fat. Maybe that'd be better a an artcile on Food Labeling or something along those lines. Well, I hope I articulated myself well enough and was not too confusing. It's late, I probably spent more time than necessary to explain all this. Aw man, please give good reason if you disagree with me. My main source of this information is ACE Personal Trainer Manual 3rd Edition. It talks about that stuff in Chapter 4 Nutrition. Jamesters 07:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Theory

Huh? The human body burns fats to supply the energy to contract and relax muscles (whereas the electrical energy needed for neural activity is provided by burning carbohydrates). Unfortunately what seems to have been overlooked, is that humans come in two types with two types of 'engine'. Those with an 'engine' which can burn either type of fat and those whose 'engine' is tuned to run at its most efficient on animal fat alone. How do you tell which type of 'engine' your body has? If you have the former, you get an equal pleasure response when you eat either butter (an animal fat) or margarine (a vegatable oil) and if you are the later you prefer the taste of butter. There is an actual difference in physical response too. The former salivate over the taste of either fat and the later only salivate over the taste of animal fat. Because the latter type run on animal fat and animals come in two types, diurnal and nocturnal, this has led to all the weight problems. People who have weight problems prefer the taste of animal fats and have been advised to eat the lower caloried vegetable fats because they have put on weight when they ate the food they preferred. That was the wrong answer! They two fall into two catagories, diurnal and nocturnal. To find out which, simply ask them when they would prefer to go out for a special meal, lunchtime or in the evening for dinner. Diurnals choose lunch and should never eat after dark and nocturnals choose evening and should only eat after dark. Were they to only eat the food the like at those times of day, they have as perfect a 'built-in' weight control system as any of the former type with the bodies tuned to run on either type of fat, i.e. thin people.

That sounds like a crackpot theory from some weight-loss author; do you have any evidence that this is actually accepted by real biochemists? --LDC

I let it remain on the page because i had never heard of _that_ strange theory before, and there are a couple of actual factoids in it...I'll extract them and add to the article. --Anders Törlind

Animal fat and vegetable fat. Where do you put fats stored by other sorts of living things - fungi and protozoa?

Is there a chemical difference between these types of fat?

"Vegetable fats were developed by plants as a means of attracting animals..."

This seems to imply some kind of motive to plants. -- RTC 20:26 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

Vegetable fats are developed by plants as a means of attracting animals in need of energy, in order to spread seeds or further pollination.

I disagree with this. and agree with RTC. This comment sounds very very weird to me. ant

every one has the engine . the fat burning is called lipogenolysis. and this occurs when there is not enough glucose supply inthe blood. ie, after you ave exhausted all your sugar in the blood. usually starving, earlu morning or after a workout. body can also generate glucose from non glucose products like amino acids . which is called gluconeogenesis. but its not adequate when the energy requirement is more. like a marathon runner. for them lipogenolysis works.

animals can not make fats direclty. (they just don't do anything proper) basic fats are plant made. animals simply alter them. after eating. and stored as different fat. --ചള്ളിയാന്‍ 19:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Carbon in fat?

Does fat contain carbon atoms? Brutulf 16:20, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Almost everything found in the human body contains a carbon atom somewhere. In particular, yes, fat contains carbon. In fact, the distinguishing feature of fatty acids is how many of it's carbon atoms are saturated with hydrogen atoms. Kutulu 12:09, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Obviously wrong

Those values were obviously wrong, yes. So why didn't you just correct them? Be bold! :)Brutulf 22:36, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Edit: Upon closer examination, it seems that there are two ways of writing it, either as kilocalories or just calories (I would prefer kilocalories). Confusing, eh? See calorie. Brutulf 22:49, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Admins, quick revert needed

Someone vandalized this. Quick revert needed ASAP! --Dungodung 18:13, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See your talkpage. Reverting is easier than you think. JFW | T@lk 22:52, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The normal short form for writing kilocalories, referring to food energy calories is kCal.

Exact description of fat needed

This article has perplexed me somewhat in that nowhere, aside from in glib references to individual constituents of it, has the term fat actually been properly defined in terms of what it actually IS, and I was hoping someone could rectify this. I have added a stub notifier to this article until someone can be bothered to address this fairly major problem. 80.177.20.202 03:49, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

It has many meanings, and the only good description is in technical terms. There are triglycerides, fatty acids, sterols, but "fat" may also refer to adipose tissue. What, specifically, is your concern? JFW | T@lk 07:11, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Cleanup

I've added a cleanup tag to warn readers that this article is still well below Wikipedia standards. Much of the text in it sounds like it was copied from an entry-level health-guide booklet, or from a school book written for younger children, and lacks the breath and scientific accuracy desireable for an encyclopedia entry. This article should best be turned into a brief overview of (a) triglycerides, (b) adipose tissue, and (c) the role of fat in human and animal nutrition, and then refer to the relevant more specific articles for further information. Any biologists here interested? Markus Kuhn 16:26, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm something of a chemist, and I think the bit on the chemistry of triglycerides is pretty clear now. I also added a bit on trans-fats. I don't know beans about biology, though, you'll have to get someone else there. Let me know if my edit was too much. Russell Abbott 08:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I also merged energy with metabolism, since metabolism is exactly that, and a major subject heading with not even a full line seemed ridiculous. Russell Abbott 09:08, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Technical Question

How does one edit the small right-hand table in the article? I see it's some sort of seperate object referenced on several pages. I was going to add Omega-3 and Omega-6 under polyunsaturated, but realized that I had no idea how those type objects were editted. JeramieHicks 03:01, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found it. It's a template. JeramieHicks 03:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Movement/Energy

What effect does basic movement have on fat? For example, I read that for a double chin one must "pat" under their chin to firm it up, some people use those vibrating work-out belts to lose weight as well. Is simple movement all that is needed to liquidate fat or is there something more involved? And if movement alone can liquidate fat, at what speeds is it required to have an effect? 71.112.224.112 02:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Request protection

I've seen a lot of vandalism to this article, can someone protect it?

Even good people die. 22:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for adding the protection tag. FYI, just doing that doesn't actually protect it... —Wknight94 (talk) 22:28, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Bobby Boyd and User:77.71.77.677.5 are a Morphadites and a Girgashites.--86.25.48.122 01:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Fat/CommentsTalk:Fat/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Rated "top" as high school/SAT biology content and basic biomolecule of public interest - tameeria 19:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 19:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 14:46, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

Dietary Considerations

Dietary fat and oils entered into controversy and manipulation soon after the shortage of fats and oils in Europe during the 1820's spurred adulteration, the growing market for textiles created tons of waste cottonseeds, Wesson invented deodorized cottonseed oil in 1899, and Proctor and Gamble launched partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil as Crisco in 1911. The battle lines hardened in Sept. 1955 when the USA's President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack, and the controversial Dr. Ancel_Keyes declared war on dietary fats as the alleged cause.

Today, we still suffer from mis-information, superstition, hunches being touted as medical facts, and slip shod questionable research promoted at the latest "scientific proof". Undeclared conflicts of interest, bias, political interference, government funding awarded to "friendly" researchers, revocation of prior government funding, and marketing propaganda has severely colored the type of research done, how the research was conducted, and the interpretation of results for dietary fat. Almost all of these problems are caused or contributed to by the huge prior investments made, and future profits that stand to be won or lost based on the outcome of the dietary fat controversy.

It is little wonder why the public is confused and jaded at the next pronouncement on dietary fat, or the alternatives thereto.

The following are some of the least disputed "facts" about dietary fat:

Many cultures and regions have historically had low or non-existent histories of obesity, heart disease, and/or cancer. This has lead some people to search for the one genetic, lifestyle, environmental, or dietary factor that caused or contributed to this better health outcome, in the hope that that one factor can be exported to all other cultures as the "magic solution" to better health. These included fish oil capsules because of Eskimo's low heart disease and cancer and high fish consumption, Okinawa Japanese longevity allegedly through yams and brown rice consumption, Mediterranean Diet high in olive oil for low obesity and cardiovascular disease, Paleo Diet. and others.

Dietary fats contribute 9 kCal per gram, which is significantly more energy than protein or carbohydrates. Therefore, a small change in dietary fats consumed can have a significant effect on the total calories consumed.

Consuming dietary fats tend to cause satiation, which helps prevent over-consumption of food and calories. Processed food billed as "Low Fat" tend to substitute additional carbohydrates, spices, salt, and/or flavorings to make the food palatable and/or addictive (see Bliss_point food engineering), resulting in consumption of excessive calories, salt, or carbohydrates.

The heart and major muscles tend to prefer (and operate more efficiently) when powered by dietary fat, as contrasted to glucose. Even the brain, after 3 to 5 days to acclimatize itself to a 'low carb, high fat' diet, can get about 70% of its energy from fat that has been metabolized into ketone bodies, with the liver supplying the other 30% of the brain's energy as glucagon (ie. glucose in a concentrated form) that has been produced by the metabolizing of dietary fat. Therefore the body can operate in a safe and healthy manner on dietary fats with minimal or no carbohydrates.

Body fat is often used as the body's dumping ground for toxins and other waste products found in the blood that can't be excreted or eliminated in another manner. The composition of the stored body fat (ie. the percentages of trans, PUFA, MUFA, SFA, Omega-3, Omega-6, etc.) is dependent on the person's prior dietary habits, integrated over time. These stored body fats (with the other toxins and waste products stored with it) can rapidly re-enter the bloodstream due to minute-by-minute variations in the energy expended and the food consumed. This can significantly skew the results of any dietary study on the impact of dietary fats, as the results tends to be influenced as a blend of what was eaten during the study, as well as the stored fat that waxes and wains during the study.

Hydrogenation of oils, deodorization, and artificially created trans-fat from excessive and/or aggressive processing methods (ie. high heat, high temperature, highly reactive chemicals and/or environments, highly oxidizing, fine grinding, excessive solvent or physical extraction and "purification" steps, long storage times, etc.) are not good choices for a healthy diet, as they have been associated with significant metabolic impacts and increased risk of disease.

The use of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations CAFO techniques for farming have significantly changed the fats in farm animals and the resulting meats, as compared to traditional farming method.

Polyunsaturated fats, PUFA, rapidly oxidize and denature over time, or cooking. The rancid or oxidized forms of these fats are generally regarded as significant problems if they are allowed into your diet.

Monosaturated fats, MUFA, are less likely to oxidize or denature, and are therefore usually better than PUFA fats.

Saturated fats, SFA, are the most stable and resistant to oxidation and denaturing.

Omega-6 fats are a PUFA that tend to cause or contribute to systemic inflammation (eg. irritable bowel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.), and therefore dietary PUFA should be significantly reduced, or minimized.

Omega-3 fats, even though they are a PUFA, tend to overcome some of the negative effects from Omega-6 dietary fats

Since the 1900's, the ratio of the dietary fats has seen dramatic shifts. Today in North America, we have 8 times more PUFA's (Omega-6 fats) in our diets, our subcutaneous fats, and mother's breast milk. This has been mainly caused by the addition of vegetable oils, and far more processed foods that contain significant quantities of PUFA. These dietary changes are spreading more and more around the world due to food costs, multi-national brand marketing, shifting food costs, and similar economic reasons.

It is generally believed that the dietary fat ratio between Omega-6 PUFA to Omega-3 MUFA should be 4 or less, with 1:1 ratio ideal.

North American diets currently have Omega-6:Omega-3 ratios as high as 20; significantly different from the maximum proposed ratio of 4.

The correlation between childhood and adult obesity has been studied many times over the previous 2 centuries, but there was never found to be a statistically valid correlation (ie. being fat as a baby did not predispose that they would become an obese adult). Today in the USA, if a 4 month old baby is obese, there is a 90% chance that child will still be obese when 7 years old. If a 7 year old is obese, there is a 90% change that child will become an obese adult.^[1] Therefore being obese at 4 months old predicts with 81% accuracy that the baby will be an obese adult. It is believed that this correlation has suddenly appeared since the 1950's due to the dramatic shift towards increasing dietary carbohydrates and reducing dietary fat consumption in the USA.

References

[1]
Dr. Lustig, "The Skinny on Obesity", http://www.uctv.tv/skinny-on-obesity/

Whats up with these unit conversions? They're off by 1000 fold.

mention the controversy

Calories?

Please indicate...

"Chemically, fats are generally triesters of glycerol and fatty acids."

No mention or link of health issues regarding fat in diet

dieting i think shall be entered into this section??? about FAT ????

Defining Fats

Edit request

Why nothing about the health dangers of over-consumption?

Edit request

Edit request on 6 August 2013

Triglycerides with two carbon chains?

Response

Semi-protected edit request on 14 February 2016

References

Semi-protected edit request on 7 September 2016

Semi-protected edit request on 3 May 2017

Semi-protected edit request on 3 May 2018

Conformation of fatty acid and trigliceride molecules

Semi-protected edit request on 19 September 2020

Semi-protected edit request on 29 September 2020

Results of merge proposal on consolidating fat articles and October 2020 status of article

The user who proposed and made consolidations across several articles on fat and fatty acids, Jorge Stolfi, has not contributed to the fat article since 31 August when all the proposed consolidations had already been made without community consensus. Since late August when the above merge proposal was initiated, there are 4 editors opposed, one editor supporting, and 3 who commented, leaning by my interpretation to opposing consolidation, leaving the consensus as 4-7 opposed to 2 in favor. So the question now is whether we leave the article status as it is in October or revert to the July status of the article here, and reconsider selectively adding revisions Stolfi made. My impression is that the Stolfi revisions were aggressive and pervasive, creating the complex article we have now that has redirects from all other fat topics (previously individual articles) to this one, raising the concerns of WP:NOTDIR, WP:NOTTEXTBOOK, and WP:OVERCAT that the present article is excessive and too cluttered for ease of accessing information by the general, non-science encyclopedia user. Zefr (talk) 16:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

What of the proposed changes above have been completed? I was brought here because I included the link saturated fatty acid on a page I was editing and found that it redirects (in my view inappropriately) to saturated fat rather than fatty acid. The saturated fat page still exists with a proposed merge banner directing to the discussion above. I assume this has not been completed because there is not consensus for the merge. This is not an RfC, just a merge proposal. If parts of the proposal were completed because there were not yet any objections and this was taken as consensus (after the one week advised minimum), then the discussion should have been formally closed to make this clear before proceeding with the actions, and then any objections be made in a new section. Mdewman6 (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I see now that at least the saturated fat merge was reverted. There are a variety of procedural issues here. It appears the discussion was started on August 8th, but the merge tag was not added until August 20th, then the merge was made on August 30th when the first discussion comment was made. As I said above, the discussion should have been closed declaring consensus before the merge was completed, then a new discussion started to discuss reversion. But since the discussion was not yet closed, there was not formally consensus. Let's remember merges can also be done on a bold, revert, discuss basis, which seems to be where we are at because WP:merge procedures were not completely followed originally. Mdewman6 (talk) 19:42, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I stand corrected that this was a merge proposal. Restating as best as I can tell in reviewing the current article, all the proposed mergers were done before any discussion occurred, as one can see from the article history dated from early August. User Stolfi proposed the mergers, waited only a few days when no one had responded, then made massive changes, believing that since there was no discussion, there must be agreement to the changes. On 30 August, I objected to this mass editing and merging, and we began this discussion in the section above. The normal merge process has not been followed or closed, and affiliated articles remain as redirects. Zefr (talk) 19:50, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Right. It would have been acceptable to conclude consensus on August 30th when there had been no discussion for 10 days, per WP:MERGE, though I do agree this is more than a simple merge proposal. However, the discussion was not closed and consensus was not declared/determined. So I also think the reversions were justifiable. Now, I think we should revisit the original proposal and consider whether implementing at least some of the proposed changes is worthwhile. Mdewman6 (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

To be clear: there weren't any reversions of the Stolfi changes - the content as it exists now is the result of mass importing and consolidation of related articles without consensus. Zefr (talk) 00:11, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but you did revert the blanking of saturated fat and perhaps others. So only half of the merge has been reverted, leaving I assume a major duplication of content between the pages, and now there has been a month and a half of subsequent edits to fat. I am not really sure how to proceed at this point. Mdewman6 (talk) 19:22, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 October 2020

Confusing sentence correction request

Possible p-hacking in references

Mistake to Merge Trans Fat into Fat, I plan to restore

Trans Fat very much deserves its own article. It has its own line on US and Canada nutrition labels, and there are many hundreds of articles devoted specifically to trans fat. Indeed, it is very strange there's an article called Trans fat regulation (which is pretty good) but not one for trans fat. It's a bit like having an article called "ketchup regulation" but any content about ketchup itself is a subpart of a gigantic article called "condiments."

The old article on trans fat has a large amount of well-written, well-sourced, and well-organized information about trans fat that is not reflected in the current fat article, which is so long that it is hard to navigate. I don't see how to view it using wiki page articles, but it can be viewed here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200706201545/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat

I plan to restore the old trans fat article and eliminate the redirect from Trans Fat to Fat.

There was a specific proposal to merge trans fat into fat. Five people said they opposed, two said they supported. But the merger happened anyway, and even worse, most of the content about trans fat was removed or else is hard to find. And with respect to Jorge Stolfi, the concerns laid out by other editors about replacing multiple high quality and long-standing articles into one huge super-article called "fat" have come true.

Further, I also note that the French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese versions of wikipedia all have separate articles for trans fat.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81cido_graso_trans

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Fetts%C3%A4uren

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acide_gras_trans

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordura_trans

Declanscottp (talk) 19:14, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

What are you going to do about trans fat regulation? All your attempts to turn back time have simply duplicated almost that entire article by pasting its content into trans fat. Until you have a plan for that, I suggest you stop edit-warring (see WP:BRD). A move discussion might be appropriate since you seem set on reversing the move from trans fat to trans fat regulation that occurred last year. Perhaps you have other ideas? Whatever they might be, pasting the entire content of one article into another is not allowed (see WP:RM). Lithopsian (talk) 19:35, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Since trans fat regulation has to cover all the different countries with different rules, it seems that it can stay separate. Unless there is a world consensus, and maybe UN regulation, they will probably stay that way. Gah4 (talk) 00:33, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

It seems sensible to have these as separate articles. However, it is unacceptable (against policy, see WP:COPYWITHIN for the relevant guideline) to duplicate content which already exists elsewhere as Declanscottp has done. I agree with Lithopsian that a formal merge/move/split discussion is needed, with input from relevant wikiprojects. Polyamorph (talk) 08:26, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Comment See this DR case (no one was notified of it). Speedy closed by @Nightenbelle: recommending good faith discussion with a well designed draft and WP:RFC. Polyamorph (talk) 08:37, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Polyamorph, it needs a new discussion regarding whether fat can be split or not to separate article Trans Fat. Feel free for anyone to propose the split. 36.77.95.63 (talk) 09:29, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

"Fat" articles need major reorganization

No consensus. I'm closing this very old proposal as no consensus; certainly no consensus for it to proceed. Some aspects of the proposal were implemented in any case without much resistance until many months later. See the discussion at Talk:Fat#Mistake to Merge Trans Fat into Fat, I plan to restore and Talk:Fat#Request to Split Fat/Trans Fat; comments there will be more helpful to move this forward rather than just comment on ancient history.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There are several articles named "fat", including

And there are also articles

The organization of these articles seems to have been created mostly 15 years ago and evolved haphazardly. It is quite illogical and leads to duplication of material. It needs a major reorganization,
First, "fat" and "fatty acid" are two very distinct concepts, primarily about nutrition and chemistry, respectively. No fat is a fatty acid, and no fatty acid is a fat. Distinct concepts should generally be covered in separate articles.
Second, the meaning of "saturated", "unsaturated", "monounsaturated", "polyunsaturated", and "trans" are properly applied to fatty acids, for which they have an obvious and unambiguous meaning. Their meaning when applied to fats, while very common and most important for most readers, is fuzzy and ambiguous -- because all fats of nutritional importance are triglicerides, with varying percentages of fatty acids of various types, sometimes in the same molecule. Thus the health effects of "saturated" vs "unsaturated" fats in diet are not so much a topic for articles on fatty acids, but for an article on dietary fat.
Indeed, from the chemical viewpoint, the distinction between "saturated fatty acid", "unsaturated fatty acid", "monounsaturated fatty acid" etc may not be significant enough to warrant separate articles for these classes.
Moreover, the current organization results in substantial duplication of material. Every sentence that compares the health aspects of saturated vs unsaturated fats in diet has to be repeated in the "unstaturated fat" article and on the "saturated fat" article, and possibly also on the other "fat" articles. This duplication wastes editor effort, and can lead to inconsistencies or omissions.
Thus I propose the following reorganization of these articles:

Move and merge all discussion of health aspects of saturated, unsaturated, and other types of fats in the diet to the Fat article.
Do the same with any "saturated vs unsaturated" health information currently in specific fatty acid articles (except information bout essential fatty acids).
Rename Saturated fat, Unsaturated fat, etc as Saturated fatty acid, Unsaturated fatty acid, etc, and rewite their head sections accordingly;
But have Saturated fat, Unsaturated fat etc. to be redirects to Fat, rather than to those fatty acid articles; resolving current links to one or the other, as appropriate.
Move the description of fatty acid codes (like "18:2 cis-9,12" and "ω-3") from Essential fatty acid to Fatty acid

And then possibly also

Merge Saturated fatty acid, Unsaturated fatty acid, etc into the Fatty acid article.
Split the health sections of Fat a separate article, to be called something like Nutritional aspects of fat or Dietary fat

What do you think?--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 11:02, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Comment Wow! You have done a lot of thinking here, and your argument seems well-laid out. Here is my main concern: as a reader of Wikipedia, when I type in a search term, I usually expect to get brought to an article that has that search term as its title. Obviously, that isn't always the case and for good reason. My concern is that a person looking for information on polyunsaturated fat and being brought to an article on "fat" is going to think, "Ugh, now I have to slog through all the other stuff to get to what I want to know about polyunsaturated fat." I agree with you completely that having multiple articles covering the same basic topic of "fat" is a waste of editor time and can lead to contradictions between articles, but I am less certain that merging so many different articles on fat is going to make whatever information readers are looking for more accessible.A loose necktie (talk) 06:33, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Saturated fat" can be a redirect that points to a specific section of the "fat" article, or of a "Dietary fat" article.--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 08:48, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Oppose for now. There has not been enough discussion among several editors to boldly make the merge among several long-established articles. Read WP:MERGE and be patient until other editors participate. The merge process needs proper discussion and voting before any changes occur. Zefr (talk) 15:17, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

The "merge" banners have been on the relevant articles for three weeks. The only comment received in that period raised one problem that could easily be addressed with section redirects. I took that to mean that there was consensus for this reorganization, and started to work on it. The above objection was added only after that. Could you please offer specific reasons to oppose the reorganization? --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 20:07, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Assuming that no comment means agreement with your view is contrary to consensus. If there were no comments, then it was your responsibility to recruit editors to the discussion to obtain different views. The main audience for Wikipedia medical articles is the general, non-science user, explained here under WP:MEDMOS. I've reviewed the different article histories in the bulleted topics above, and feel this consolidation is all a mess for general encyclopedia users. The articles should exist separately as they have historically, and as A loose necktie said above: "when I type in a search term, I usually expect to get brought to an article that has that search term as its title... My concern is that a person looking for information on polyunsaturated fat and being brought to an article on "fat" is going to think, "Ugh, now I have to slog through all the other stuff to get to what I want to know about polyunsaturated fat." Merging different articles on fat ignores MEDMOS and makes whatever information readers are looking for on specific fat topics less accessible. Consolidation under one article also defeats the purpose of serving the common user with clear, plain content better presented as separate articles - WP:NOTTEXTBOOK #7. Recommendation: go to the histories of each fat article and invite up to 10 different editors, or post a discussion at WT:MED for the general medical community to comment on these changes. Zefr (talk) 21:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

> The main audience for Wikipedia medical articles is the general, non-science user I fully agree with that, and I am not proposing to make the articles more "scientific". On the contrary, a large part of my edits in Wikipedia (and most of my fights with other editors) have been to make articles more understandable by a more general readership. But that includes organizing the information in a way that gives a clearer picture of the topic in suitable context. The fragmentation and (incomplete, often incorrect) duplication of information in the current arrangement is clearly contrary to that goal. Note that practically all the contents of "Saturated fat" is not about saturated fat per se, but about the relative amount of Sat x Unsat in the diet; and that is practically all the contents of "Unsaturated fat" as well.
> when I type in a search term, I usually expect to get to an article that has that search term as its title That is not a reasonable expectation; Wikipedia has millions of redirects that send the reader to articles where his search topic is better covered and explained than it would be by a specific article. And, as I explained to that user, the effect that he wants can be achieved by a redirect to a specific section of an article. That is what the {{anchor|}} template is for.
> Consolidation under one article also defeats the purpose of serving the common user with clear, plain content better presented I am sorry to say, but the present contents of "Saturated fat", "Unsaturated fat", and other similar articles are awful in that regard. I am confident that I can substantially improve it -- even without changing any of the information -- as part of the merge.
> Recommendation Thanks, but there is no such requirement in the rules. For one thing, an (often unpleasant) basic rule of Wikipedia is that past editors of an article (or subscribers to a particular Wikiproject) have no more authority or "rights" to it than any other editors.
On the other hand, a wonderful feature of Wikipedia is that any amount of editing can be undone with one button click. So I ask only that you please let me try the consolidation, and then decide whether it was an improvement, or should be undone.
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Oppose, per Zefr. Need time to discuss & think this through --Distelfinck (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
Oppose. In my opinion, the majority of visitors to these articles are not scientists working in this area, but rather lay public who are looking for specific information. On food labels in the U.S. there is information for "Saturated Fat" and "Trans Fat", and if applies, "Monounsaturated Fat" and "Polyunsaturated Fat" (see corn oil labels). David notMD (talk) 14:44, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

As explained above, those users are better served by redirects to unified articles or sections that discuss "saturated versus unsaturated" fats in diet and "monounsaturated versus polyunsaturated" fats in diet. Likewise, users looking for "omega-3" "omega-6", "omega-9", "omega-7" would be much better served by a single article or section that explains essential fatty acids, fatty acid conversion in the human body, the roles of specific fatty acids in it, and and why those labels are meaningful (or not). All in language comprehensible by general readers, of course.
All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

oppose per all opinions above--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:02, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
Comment This is quite a big merge proposal; I think there are good reasons mentioned above for keeping these as separate articles, but I would be interested to know what editors who have worked on these in the past think. For example Benbest has contributed to two of these which have been boldly redirected. CV9933 (talk) 11:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
Comment This is a big merge proposal involving more thought than I can wrap my head around at the moment. Concerning the first suggestion, I would prefer a stand-alone article entitled Fat health effects (or a similar title -- that is off the top of my head). Having some comments about health effect in the separate fat-type articles would seem appropriate, with a "Main article" link. Renaming "Saturated fat" to "Saturated fatty acid" seems scientific and desirable. I think it is good to have detailed articles dealing with saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, although these can be pointed-to by "Main article" links. I realize that my suggestions are not in the spirit of mergers, but I am simply expressing my top-of-the-head thoughts, and not making arguments with strong convictions. --Ben Best:Talk 01:34, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
Support the proposal as I agree reorganization is needed and I applaud the nominator for taking such a thorough and holistic approach. I disagree with the comment above that no opposition to a merge proposal cannot be taken as consensus (see WP:MERGE and WP:CONSENSUS), however I do think it is best that substantive discussion like this take place before executing such broad changes. Given the above discussion, it might be best to start smaller and propose a small chunk at a time with specific proposals that editors can better appreciate quickly, even if you have a grander long-term vision. Let's remember Wikipedia is not a dictionary; we don't need articles for every sub-type of a concept like fat or fatty acid unless there is so much content that a separate article is justified, with a main link at its section in a parent article. As you discuss, there are two main topics here, fats as a dietary concept, and fatty acids as a chemical concept. Also, we should consider how the article Lipid fits in with all this. Fat as a anatomical concept apparently is covered at Adipose tissue, but let's keep in mind how these concepts relate with appropriate links and redirects. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
Support As a student, I deem ambiguity and equivocality as the main encumbrances for the dissemination of proper information. Thanks to you, the concept between "fats" and "fatty acids" has now evolved within me which I could use for future references. Albeit the minor drawback of conjoining these two articles together would be a hindrance of accessibility, I believe that to attain the information you need, it is required to at least strive and work to locate that data and prove its verifiability to be used to corroborate whatever research theme you are looking for. Alternately, we could also provide a disambiguation page, but I leave that case to the more experienced editors. Best regards Ice bear johny (talk) 06:09, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

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