"The education in popular culture around exercising presents it as a magic pill, as being a major driving force behind weight loss. You see this on magazine covers and on tv, "belly fat exercises", "toning exercises""

There's def some of that going on, but there's also a fair amount of fad diets - atkins, south beach, paleo etc etc popping up here and there.

The fact that you get the 6 pack by dieting and not by doing crunches is common knowledge in the "lifting community", on the flip side - lifting when dieting is also important to maintain body comp.

And then of course there's the obvious fact that "losing weight" != "losing fat" which makes articles like this not only click-baity but also bordering on being misinformative.