The phrase that being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful.
It's similar to thinking we have solved poverty. People living in poverty should spend less and make more. Problem solved.
The much more interesting questions are
1. Why does it take some people more food to reach the same level of satiety as others?
2. Why do some people's bodies burn off excess calories through things like non-exercise activity thermogenesis and other store it as fat?
3. Do different types of food effect long term satiety? By changing what we eat can we effect our weight in the long term?
4. How does the body increase hunger and turn off self-control when there is reduced food intake?
The only known "solutions" we currently have to obesity are dieting and exercise. The problem is the long term efficacy rate of dieting is around 5%. If dieting were a drug it would never pass FDA approval for effectiveness. Exercise has only modest effects and is probably more effective as preventing weight gain than causing weight loss.
We still have so much more to learn. We are just at the beginning of figuring out the causes and solutions to this issue.
It's similar to thinking we have solved poverty. People living in poverty should spend less and make more. Problem solved.
The much more interesting questions are
1. Why does it take some people more food to reach the same level of satiety as others?
2. Why do some people's bodies burn off excess calories through things like non-exercise activity thermogenesis and other store it as fat?
3. Do different types of food effect long term satiety? By changing what we eat can we effect our weight in the long term?
4. How does the body increase hunger and turn off self-control when there is reduced food intake?
The only known "solutions" we currently have to obesity are dieting and exercise. The problem is the long term efficacy rate of dieting is around 5%. If dieting were a drug it would never pass FDA approval for effectiveness. Exercise has only modest effects and is probably more effective as preventing weight gain than causing weight loss.
We still have so much more to learn. We are just at the beginning of figuring out the causes and solutions to this issue.