Adjust within limits. And the limits are fairly narrow. It's also true that hard exercise will blow away those limits, and require more food. Every single time.

But hard exercise is hard! Folks don't want to do it. They want to stretch and walk around a track and pretend. But they don't want to do 20 miles on a bike. They convince themselves that they can't. Or they try and get aches and pains and decide that's bad. Pretty much throwing up roadblocks right and left, anything to avoid the work.

We all know this. It's why there are 1000 books about tricks and diets and how to fool yourself. Because we want to do that instead. But we can stop enabling that; stop making excuses for small issues about body adjustments and so on.

OK? You and I can do these things, but we are outliers. For example, 750 minutes of exercise per week is a lot is what I estimated from a study for diminishing return for health. That's 12.5 hours, let alone meeting the weekly minimum requirement.

Most people are busy, they have jobs or families or kids. Yet decades ago, these same people aren't fat.

We all know this. It's why there are 1000 books about tricks and diets and how to fool yourself. Because we want to do that instead. But we can stop enabling that; stop making excuses for small issues about body adjustments and so on.

There's certainly no magic trick, but being dogmatic or smug isn't helpful either.

No. We're not outliers. Except from the psychological point of view, sure. Which is where this started. We've got 1000 voices reinforcing the view that some magic pill exists, and that has its effect.

Smugness is nowhere in sight. More like resignation and sadness.

Why do you believe this is a psychological problem and not a physiological problem?

I believe for the vast majority of people, buckling down and doing some hard exercise would make a world of difference. The greatest obstacle to that is a mental one, reinforced by culture and the medical infrastructure.

Hard exercise is the least efficient form of weight control - it is hard, it is unpleasant when you're starting out, it takes loads of time, it has a risk of injury, it is very likely to make you overeat.

Why, of all things, do you think forcing people to do hard exercise would be effective for the vast majority of people, compared to, say, an improved diet?

All those things are hyperbole, repeated endlessly to warn people away from exercise. It's a cultural thing, and we're embedded in that culture. But exercise is the normal state for humans, and to think otherwise is a weird local phenomenon.

The mirage of 'an improved diet' is the current fad idea and the topic of this conversation. Why doesn't it work for most people? Why are there 1000 books about it, and still no consensus?

I'm not sure who is supposed to be repeating this endlessly to warn people away, but most people discover these things if they actually try hard exercise for themselves.

'Forcing people' should have been 'having people force themselves', too late to edit now.