I assumed that was in reference to solving obesity at society level not individual level.

I would say, unhealthy food must be taxed, so that healthy stuff is the cheaper choice too.

This is repeated a lot but if you actually look at the research you find that physical exercise has very little effect(except maybe as a preventative). That nutrition in general has a small effect. And dieting has a larger effect but is only temporary, and no dietary interventions have shown any real success over the long term.

Bariatric surgery is currently the only real effective treatment. With GLP agonists like semaglutide having similar effects at least in the near term.

> This is repeated a lot but if you actually look at the research you find that physical exercise has very little effect(except maybe as a preventative).

This baseless assertion is simply outright wrong, and utterly absurd on so many levels.

* https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/abs/10.7326/0003-4819-133-2-...

* https://www.nature.com/articles/0800499

Please don't spread misinformation.

Sorry there was some confusion. By long term I meant 3-10 year follow ups.

Weight loss from diet/exercise will definitely persist for a year or even a couple.

Also specifically about exercise your study says "[Weight] did not change in the exercise without weight loss [group]"

> Sorry there was some confusion. By long term I meant 3-10 year follow ups.

That only happens if the patient relapses into his previous unhealthy lifestyle.

You can't simply follow a poor high calory diet and a sedentary lifestyle and still expect zero consequences from your actions. If your problem is behavioral then you fix it by fixing the problems in your behavior.

I lost recently 70 lbs without any surgery. Talking about extreme cases I have no idea, never met any people above 300 lbs. I can only guess, that start is always the same. Personally I am not a friend of surgical interventions.

Oh sorry I'm not arguing that it never happens, just that in every clinical trial I've seen that followed participants for 5 years it was so rare to keep the weight off that the average weight loss for the group was insignificant(clinically not statistically).

That’s probably the same effect as with Weight Watchers where long time success is rather limited. I have been there too. After couple years old habits return, one starts eating bad things, something happens (let’s take some illness) and exercising ends. Pounds are coming back and cycle starts again.