I have to wonder how this would even work with the current push for plant based foods, "My Plate", minimal protein, minimal fats, high fiber, and lots of carbs. <---- That's what's currently considered to be a healthy diet for everyone, especially those who need to lose weight.

The vast majority of health care professionals are going to insist that a pure calories in/calories out equation is the only way for their obese patients to lose weight, and restrict them to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200-1500 calories, with the vast majority of those calories from carbs.

The logic is that a gram of carbohydrate only provides 4 calories, but a gram of fat provides 9 calories - the equation says that you cut your fat consumption because every gram of fat has 2.25 times the calories of a gram of carbohydrate. So you can theoretically eat 2.25 times more carbohydrate for the same number of calories, so that on that low fat/high fiber diet your stomach won't feel so empty. (ironically, protein is also 4 calories per gram - but you supposedly don't "need" more than 54 g of protein daily, and you can get that pitifully small amount from fat-free plant based foods... so doctors will advise you to cut out most animal based proteins)

Carbs are important in that equation because you'll need all those carbs to fuel your workouts in order to use more calories.

Or at least that's how the standard weight loss theory goes - and it's an extremely rare medical professional, dietician or nutritionist who will even consider that might not be the best way to lose weight and maintain weight loss.


Never mind that even health care professionals and dieticians have seen the long term results of the Biggest Loser contestants. The few who have been able to keep the weight off seriously struggle because such a low calorie, primarily carb based diet is simply not sustainable. The very few who have managed to keep most of their weight off after doing that show basically work at it like it's a full time job - counting calories, and exercising intensely for hours every day.


So what you're proposing is that everyone who is obese somehow figures out on their own that super low calories isn't going to work long term, and decides on their own to make the change to a low carb diet (or some diet that actually works long term for them), because I can guarantee you that **no one in a position of authority over what constitutes a healthy diet would dare tell them to eat low carb. Oh sure they'll tell them to cut out the fast food and junk food - and cutting those out may help some because that helps cut back on carbs, but as long as they're still eating mostly carbs, they're going to be craving more and more carbs, and will either start regaining weight, or just give up altogether and go back to the junk food.

[**At least they won't get that message from health care professionals and dieticians/nutritionists in the US - keep in mind that the article quoted above is from the UK, where they have a national health care system - and there is at least the beginnings of an official stance in the UK about cutting carbs to control diabetes, thanks to Dr Unwin's success with diabetic patients.]


Or the doctors can put all the morbidly obese on GLP-1 drugs, which will accomplish the same thing as the low cal/mostly carbs diet, but they need to be on those drugs for life to keep the weight off. And with the price of those drugs, they'll already be paying more, since the co-pay for brand name drugs is generally based on a percentage of the drug's full price.

I would hope that Drs in the US are pushing low fat/high fiber/more carbs because they're truly convinced it's the best way to eat for health.

The food industry though? Considering that the tobacco companies started buying up UPF food companies when tobacco sales started dropping, and subsequently applied their experience in making tobacco products more addictive to the UPF industry, I doubt they give a single thought to anyone's health, and are only concerned about their bottom line. The only way they'll change how they conduct business is if it is no longer profitable to run their business that way - it has to start costing them more to produce junky UPFs than customers are willing to pay in order for them to give up their current business model.