Absolutely nothing magical about eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are sated. As long as you avoid unhealthy, unnatural foods (primarily refined carbs) this strategy works just fine. Animals don't have to count calories to avoid obesity, no reason why humans should either.

Admittedly this is only partially informed, but I am pretty sure most animals don't have access to enough calories to be obese. And those that do (e.g. pets, zoo animals) are (sometimes) kept from obesity due to careful calorie counting by their human caretakers.

I think every labrador retriever on the planet would be 200 lbs if they had their way.

They also wouldn't be confined to a house or yard.

Even farm dogs do their best to get fat. Either way, that's an indictment of activity level then, and not of food quality.

Eating is naturally regulated by appetite. That's why appetite and satiation exist. It's difficult to be obese when you eat only unprocessed foods. If you don't believe me, try it out. You might be surprised.

You didn't address their point that zoo animals have to sometimes be kept on diets to remain slim, in spite of their all natural diet. This article seems to think it's a whole gamut of things that keeps these animals thin. http://sciencenordic.com/can-wild-animals-become-overweight

Appetite and satiation are far more complex than just "eat until your full and then stop", for instance amensiac patients have been observed to eat waaay more than they should have just because they did remember eating (Rozin et al. (1998)), even they should have by all rights been physically full. There's whole layers of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns with excess food consumption.

Personally, I have been able to effectively lose and keep off weight while still enjoying all manner of unnatural foods (Ice cream, McDonald's and candy, oh my).

I had success with calorie-counting, and I think part of that came from accidentally co-opting an existing behavior involving bargain-hunting and frugality.

Food choices became about avoiding "spending" my calories on "bad deals", avoiding foods which didn't promise enjoyment commensurate to their cost.

I did that too - I made sure to get my protein (via protein shakes), but after that just ate what I wanted. I developed the same habit too - I ended up restricting things like rice or pasta because I'd rather "spend" those calories on an ice cream cone.

Many animals actively work towards obesity every year before hibernation. They can absolutely gain weight on all natural foods.

Storing up fat for hibernation is perfectly natural and has no negative effect on the health of the animal. It has nothing to do with obesity as the term is normally used.

My physiology is so far removed from a wild animal’s it’s not even funny. My ancestors propagated thanks to luck, wit and guile, not their ability to get food and mate like wild animals.

I think the study shows precisely that it's not a public health danger to tell people that.

What exactly is a whole food? Or a non-processed food? Is honey a natural, healthy food? Are nuts and oily seeds better for your weigh than industrial potato chips? Is cold pressed sesame oil not a high calorie food?

It's a clear public safety danger to imply the above are healthier than their processed counterparts, and my main beef is with the sensationalist title, that aims right at the "calories are a myth" bandwagon. The study itself is good, if it works, it works.

You're asking questions which go against the bias, and cannot be answered without exposing deficiencies in the appeal to nature the "whole foods are best" ideology is founded on. It's disconcerting to see a fallacy being eaten whole by so many.

This page:

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...

has this sentence:

> There are many natural things that are better than unnatural, but they must be evaluated based on other criteria besides the “naturalness”.

which sums up the whole thing nicely.

Obviously there are degrees of processing, but it's not hard to see that an apple or a carrot or even a steak are fundamentally less processed and more "natural" than a packet of chips, a bar of chocolate or a TV dinner. They are also much healthier.

This is a good example of prejudice. A TV dinner can be healthy if it contains suficient legumes and low fat meat. And depending on exactly what steak you are proposing and the manner of preparation, it can be significantly more calorie dense and packed with cholesterol and saturated fat.

Freezing and preservatives don't significantly alter nutritional value, and there exist low calorie frozen meals specifically formulated for dieters. Highly processed, but much healthier than some very natural wholesome steaks.

Eh, I find it hard to judge people for being human. A solution isn't really a good solution if it's difficult to impossible to implement in practice.

This is like saying the solution to addiction is to just stop doing drugs, but people are too incompetent and need magical solutions like rehab and maintenance drugs.