Why is a very low level of body fat unhealthy in young women?

Answer 1

I think the specific question was why it was bad for young women to be at a very low body fat, & the answer is because it's not reproductively healthy. If women fall beneath a certain percentage they will stop having a menstrual cycle because the body thinks it's starving, &therefore is trying to protect the woman from getting pregnant, because she could never maintain a healthy pregnancy at such a low level body fat level. Likewise, you need body fat in order to produce milk, which burns a lot of calories.

It's odd that we view Olympians, Body Builders, Ballerinas & other professional athletes with low body fat to be the icon of health. In fact, most ballerinas don't menstruate.

Original Response:

fat is needed for everyone whether you are a young women or not...fat stores toxins to prevent them from getting into the rest of our body were they could do harm. fat also stores energy from food. if you have no fat to burn during exercise than instead of your muscles eating fat and growing like they are supposed to...they will eat themselves, and no, that doesn't make yo look pretty! a healthy person eats as much as they want...they just make sure what they are eating is healthy and do exercise regularly.