Can cats eat too much?

[derbstyron]

My cat - actually its my daughters cat, so NO I'm not
a male living at 35 alone with just my cats, so keep your
wise-ass comments to yourselves! - seems to be getting
chunkier.

Is this normal?

She is getting older. And she does leave food in the bowl.
But she just seems to have gained quite a few pounds over
the past six months to a year.

Just curious and, quite obviously, very, very bored

[KitchenWitch]

1. Cats older than 7 or 8 have slower metabolisms

Regular cat food can make them gain weight. Use senior cat food and she should trim down for you.

[derbstyron]

2. Oh good.

Thanks!

I was beginning to get a little worried.

[Spinzonner]

3. Could be thyroid

or lots of other things.

http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/hypothyroidism.html

[Heidi]

4. Yes. Our vet told us a couple of years ago . . .

that our wiley and excellent boy cat was "a little on the limit" at annual weigh-in and vaccination. (The vet is a very nice and polite Swiss-German who likely was avoiding saying, "Lady, your cat is FAT!")

Shortly after that, our cat developed colitis, most likely caused by an allergy to a common dye in cheap dry cat food, according to the vet. We followed the vet's advice and switched boy cat to a canned cat food containing only organically grown chicken and rice with no additives, and a better, vitamin enriched dry cat food for "finicky" cats. Our cat is slimmer now, more active and hasn't had a recurrence of colitis.