Choosing Healthy Fats

Good Fats, Bad Fats, and the Power of Omega-3s

Healthy fats

For years, nutritionists and doctors have preached that a low-fat diet is the key to losing weight, managing cholesterol, and preventing health problems. But more than just the amount of fat, it’s the types of fat you eat that really matter. Bad fats increase cholesterol and your risk of certain diseases, while good fats protect your heart and support overall health. In fact, good fats—such as omega-3 fats—are essential to physical and emotional health.

Making sense of dietary fat

Dietary fats are found in food from plants and animals. The four major types are:

monounsaturated fats

polyunsaturated fats (including omega-3s)

trans fats

saturated fats

Despite what you may have been told, not all fats are bad guys in the waistline wars. While dietary fats all contain 9 calories per gram, they can have very different effects on your health as well as your weight. “Bad” fats, such as trans fats, are guilty of the unhealthy things all fats have been blamed for—weight gain, clogged arteries, and so forth. But good fats such as omega-3s have the opposite effect. In fact, healthy fats play a huge role in helping you manage your moods, stay on top of your mental game, fight fatigue, and even control your weight.

The answer for a healthy diet isn’t to cut out the fat—it’s to replace bad fats with the good ones that promote health and well-being.