The cause of America's rising obesity rate is irrelevant. The cure for it is what's important.

NuSi go home. You're drunk.

From https://dietdatabase.com/causes-of-obesity/

On a blog comments section somewhere, a argument discussion took place about what caused America's rising obesity rate. Some people have a hypothesis that there's one main cause. Reductionism of an extremely complex problem down to one main factor is utter stupidity. Here's a rough list, in no particular order:-
Excessive Carbohydrates (Gary Taubes)
Excessive Refined Sugar (John Yudkin, Robert Lustig, Gary Taubes)
Excessive Refined Fructose (Robert Lustig)
Excessive Wheat/Gluten Grains (William Davis)
Excessive Fat (Dean Ornish, Cardwell Esseltyn etc)
Excessive Saturated Fat (Dean Ornish, Cardwell Esseltyn etc)
Excessive Animal Protein (Garth Davis)
Mineral Imbalances (Jane Karlsson, "Duck Dodgers")
The Government (Richard Nikoley)
Dietary Guidelines (Nina Teicholz, Aseem Malhotra, Tim Noakes etc)
Insufficient protein (Ignatius Brady)

It's not Refined Sugar. Sorry John Yudkin, Robert Lustig, Gary Taubes. See below...

Refined Sugar intake (kcal/capita/day) is higher in France than in the USA, but in France there's a lower obesity rate. ∴ Hypothesis disproved*.

*As the Refined Sugar intake data may be unreliable (it's also associational data), the hypothesis is not necessarily disproved. If only there's an interventional study (which proves causation) which results in lower weight on a higher sugar/fructose intake. There is! See The effect of two energy-restricted diets, a low-fructose diet versus a moderate natural fructose diet, on weight loss and metabolic syndrome parameters: a randomized controlled trial. ∴ Hypothesis disproved.

I asked Duck Dodgers what he wanted to happen. He said:-
"My feeling is that if people recognize that enriched foods are the antithesis of whole foods, then the demand for enriched/refined foods may diminish, forcing the industry to change."

I want people to eschew over-refined food products for produce, too. So all of the arguing about what caused America's rising obesity rate was a complete waste of time. This gave me an idea. I decided to run my idea past someone who deals with obese people with T2DM and who just happened to be in the U.K, attending the Health Unplugged Conference, I PM'ed Dr. Jeffrey Gerber on Facebook, inviting him to meet me at Cafe Class in Woking (a location roughly half-way between my home and London).

So this happened...

Ivor Cummins came, too!

Suffice it to say, the afternoon was a blast!

Cont'd on Public Service Announcement: Calling all Low-carb, Low-fat and Veg*n advocates.

Why using macronutrient percentages is so wrong.

From https://sciencelearn.org.nz/Contexts/Food-Function-and-Structure/Sci-Media/Images/Macronutrient-percentages

1. Deception

Consider Lies, damned lies and statistics, part n+1. Riera-Crichton et al.  

Relative fat intake in %E decreased and obesity increased.

The conclusion:- "Carbohydrates are fattening and fat is slimming." Yeah, right!

Absolute fat intake in grams/kcals has always increased, according to More Thoughts on Macronutrient Trends. Absolute protein intake in grams/kcals has also always increased.

Gary Taubes & Nina Teicholz use this deliberate misrepresentation of data to create the false narrative that low-fat healthy eating guidelines caused the obesity epidemic in the US. It's a pack of lies.

2. The terms "Low Fat" and "High Fat" are meaningless

Take 55g of fat (500kcals), 125g of protein (500kcals) and 375g of carbohydrate (1,500kcals). It adds up to 2,500kcals, with a percentage C/F/P split of 60/20/20. It's a High Carb, Low Fat diet.

Now remove 125g of carbohydrate to leave 250g of carbohydrate (1000kcals). It now adds up to 2,000kcals, with a percentage C/F/P split of 50/25/25. It's still a High Carb, Low Fat diet.

Now remove another 125g of carbohydrate to leave 125g of carbohydrate (500kcals). It now adds up to 1,500kcals, with a percentage C/F/P split of 33/33/33. It's now a Medium Carb, Medium Fat Zone diet.

Now remove another 62.5g of carbohydrate to leave 62.5g of carbohydrate (250kcals). It now adds up to 1,250kcals, with a percentage C/F/P split of 20/40/40. It's now a Low Carb, Highish Fat diet.

Now remove another 62.5g of carbohydrate to leave 0g of carbohydrate (0kcals). It now adds up to 1,000kcals, with a percentage C/F/P split of 0/50/50. It's now a Very Low Carb, High Fat diet.

So, 55g/day of fat can be Low Fat, Medium Fat, Highish Fat or High Fat. Which leads to...

3. Confusion

When someone sees the term LCHF (Low Carb, High Fat), they think it means "Eat less carbohydrate and eat more fat". As changes in body stores are determined by Energy Balance, eating more fat leads to a slower rate of weight-loss (or even weight-gain), not a faster rate of weight-loss.

By all means cut the consumption of "bad" carbs, like burgers in buns, chips/fries, crisps/chips, pizzas, cakes, biscuits/cookies, chocolate (which are also high in fats) & sugar-sweetened beverages.

However, if you believe that "good" carbs like vegetable produce, legumes, whole grains and whole fruits make you fat and sick, you need to have your head examined, unless you're in the tiny percentage of the population who have genetic carbohydrate intolerance.

See also Insulin Resistance: Solutions to problems.