Does Eating Fruit Make You Gain Fat?

Key Takeaways

I’m ashamed to admit that I used to believe that eating fruit makes you gain fat.
If you’d like a detailed breakdown on why eating fruit doesn’t cause fat gain, check out the following resources:
The ONLY way that eating fruit can make you gain fat is if it causes you to eat too many calories over time.
It’s essential to continually challenge your beliefs and stay up-to-date on the most current research, but it’s even more important to check your sources.
Fruit is good for your health and DEFINITELY doesn’t make you gain fat. In fact, due to it’s fiber, water, and low caloric density, fruit is one of the more difficult foods to overeat. Whether you’re eating 2 pieces or 12 bananas per day, if you’re not eating more calories than you burn you will not gain fat.

Full Story

I’m ashamed. When I tell you this, you’re going to question not only my integrity as a fitness coach but also my sanity. Are you ready? Well, here it goes -

I used to believe that eating fruit makes you gain fat.

I know, I know. It’s embarrassing and horrifying, but it's true. About 5 years ago, for reasons I’ll address shortly, I had been convinced that eating too much fruit led to fat gain. I only held this belief for a short amount of time, but for at least a few weeks I had thought the idea was not only plausible, but logical.

On a hike during those fateful weeks, I remember having this conversation with my friend:

Me - “I think I might be eating too much fruit and it’s causing me to put on fat.”
Friend - “No way! Fruit is good for you, you dummy!”
Me - “I’m serious. I’ve been doing some research and the body converts fructose, the primary sugar found in fruit, into fat more easily than other carbohydrates.”
Friend - “Oh, interesting.” (Internally - John’s nice and all, but I need to stop hanging out with such a lunatic…)

After I explain myself, I hope you’ll be able to forgive my lapse in judgement and common sense. Though it was an inexcusable mistake, I’ve come to see the error of my ways and I am committed to making sure that everyone knows the truth.

Now that I know better, let me explain why the concept that eating fruit leads to fat gain is totally bananas.

How Did I Get Fooled?

To be 100% honest, I don’t remember the exact book or “expert” that convinced me that fruit consumption causes fat gain. After a quick google search, the following “resources” are a few likely culprits:

These are real doctors and Youtube personalities with hundreds of thousands of followers, so can you blame me for trusting them? It’s 100% my fault for believing their unconventional takes and logical fallacies, and it’s my goal to prevent my followers from falling for it too. After all, their convincing arguments fool millions of people each year!

The Argument

I don’t want to spend too much time on the argument, because it’s:

False
Confusing
Not the point of this article

Briefly, the argument that fruit makes you gain is centered around a few key points:

Fructose, the primary sugar found in fruit, can only be processed by the liver.
The liver can only handle so much fructose at one time before the liver glycogen (storage site) fills up.
The body stores extra fructose as body fat.
Because of this, high fructose consumption is more likely than glucose (the type of sugar found in bread, rice, potatoes, and other non-fruit sources of carbs) to cause Type 2 Diabetes, Obesity and Insulin Resistance
You should only eat small amounts of fruits before or after your workout, or else it will be stored as body fat.

Sound scary? It is! But don’t fret - it’s not even close to the truth.

The Truth

Fruit doesn’t make you gain fat. That’s it, that’s the truth. If you’d like a more detailed breakdown, check out the following resources (and don’t worry, you can trust these):

As one example, this study found that a diet that consisted of 150 grams of fructose (equivalent to about 21 bananas each day!), when consumed in the absence of a caloric surplus, did not have negative effects on any metabolic health markers or increase body fat (8). Other studies have also found that the consumption of naturally occurring fructose found in fruits and vegetables is not harmful to health (9, 10).

Finally, diets high in fruits and vegetables are consistently found to be associated with positive health outcomes (11, 12). If fruit consumption truly caused fat gain, or any other negative health effects, it is unlikely that it would be found to have such health-protective effects.

Rest assured, eating fruit will not make you gain fat.

Thought Experiment

Credit to Jordan Syatt for this thought experiment that really puts the “fruit makes you gain fat” myth to the common sense test.

Imagine you pop some blueberries into your mouth, and someone comes up to you, slaps the container out of your hands, and yells “Oh my GOD! What are you doing?!” Don’t you know that blueberries are making you fat?”

Your reaction in this scenario, Jordan would advise, should be to look the berry-slapper in the eye and repeat back slowly, “You’re... telling me... that blueberries… are making… me gain fat?” Put this way, the suggestion that fruit makes you gain fat sounds absolutely ridiculous!

In the depths of biochemistry and fructose metabolism, it’s easy to get bogged down in the complexity and believe some pretty whacky ideas. But if you slow down and say the idea out loud, the difference between fact and fear-inducing myth becomes clear.

Fruit CAN Make You Gain Fat

The ONLY way that eating fruit can make you gain fat is if it causes you to eat too many calories over time. If you consume more energy than you expend, whether it be in the form of jelly-filled donuts, cheeseburgers, or apples, over the long-term you will gain weight!

For instance, maybe you’re an apple fanatic:

By biting into one apple, you lose all control and feel an insatiable desire to demolish a whole bag.
When you go grocery shopping, you need to avoid the produce section because you can’t stop yourself from throwing 50 apples into your cart.
You need to tell people not to even bring apples into your home because you have a serious problem and are trying to get clean!

Personally, I’ve never met anyone that has had a problem with consuming too many calories from fruit. Chips? Sure. Soda? You bet. Peanut butter cups? You’d be insane if you didn’t!

Unlike ultra-processed foods, fruit has built-in barriers to prevent eating too much. Even if apples are your favorite food in the world, I bet you’d struggle to eat much more than a few in one sitting. Because fruit is full of fiber and water and just takes a lot of time and effort to chew, it’s nearly impossible to overeat!

When in doubt, think of every overweight person you know in your life and ask yourself “how many of them got there by eating too much fruit?” The answer will speak for itself.

Wrap Up - Eat Your Fruit

I have two main takeaways from my embarrassing “fruit causes fat gain” experience:

It’s essential to continually challenge your beliefs and stay up-to-date on the most current research, but it’s even more important to check your sources. If I had taken the time to search PubMed, double check the claim with evidence-based professionals I trust (Layne Norton, for example), or even just googled the names of the doctors and Youtube personalities that claim fruit makes you gain fat along with the term “quack”, I would have saved myself a few weeks of ignorance.
Fruit is good for your health and DEFINITELY doesn’t make you gain fat. In fact, due to it’s fiber, water, and low caloric density, fruit is one of the more difficult foods to overeat. Whether you’re eating 2 pieces or 12 bananas per day, if you’re not eating more calories than you burn you will not gain fat.

If you have any questions or other myths you’d like busted, feel free to send them to me below:

Sources: