Obesity and diet

Obesity in dogs is a major health problem, with current figures suggesting over half of adult dogs are either overweight or obese. As a result of this, the risk of developing several other diseases increases, such as metabolic abnormalities, immune disorders, and joint

Dogs with eat a high fat diet, might be less likely to overeat

problems. But why are more and more dogs suffering from this serious condition?Unfortunately, the answer is not simple. Research has established for example that a correlation exists between dog owners being overweight and their pets. In addition, smaller breeds of dogs are more susceptible to weight gain, than larger breeds. But could it be that as the majority of dogs are fed dry carbohydrate dense diets, that this may have a contributing role?

A common belief is that feeding a dog a high fat diet will result in the animal becoming overweight or obese. However, the reality is that regardless of the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrate in a diet, if a dog is fed to its energy requirement, it will maintain a healthy weight. But what if a dog could free feed on a high fat diet, reflective of their wolf ancestry, would they overeat or not? I wondered this, so decided to construct a study over 4 weeks to see. The results demonstrated that the dog’s bodyweight was not significantly higher compared to the start of the experiment, with them also eating to approximately energy requirement. This finding is relevant as it might relate to a concept referred to as the “rule of compromise.”  

In essence the premise behind this theory is that when an animal is restricted to a nutritionally imbalanced food which limits optimal nutrient intake, a compromise is required. A decision must, therefore, be made by the animal whether to overeat some nutrients and undereat others. Could be that the dogs in my study, fed a high fat diet might have reached their intake target? And because of this did not overeat. Or perhaps a more intriguing question is are dogs fed dry diets, which are rich in carbohydrates applying the rule of compromise? Specifically, are they consuming more food than is needed because they are not being fed enough fat? Of course, as previously mentioned, if a dog is fed a diet to energy requirement regardless of macronutrient content it will maintain a healthy bodyweight. But, if dog was inherently applying the rule of compromise, it would likely beg for more food and appear unsatiated. In turn, this would increase the potential for the animal to be overfed by its owner. 

More research is needed to fully understand if this is correct, however the possibility does exist, that feeding a high fat diet leads to a less fat dog!