If it works for 5% of people it is by definition not useless. Bariatric surgery is not without its risks, and I would rather weed out the 5% who respond to the low risk approach before exposing them to the risks and long term side effects of bariatric surgery.

5% is really generous in the data I've seen and posted above, and I've never seen any positive data on just advice. Maybe the data on what happens if you call your patients weak willed losers would surprise us all, but I doubt it.

The data you posted shows that the average person was able to maintain about 7lbs of weight loss without surgery, so it's definitely more than 5%*.

Also, who is saying we are calling patients weak willed losers? Should we not tell patients to stop smoking, or to quit heroin, because they might think that we think of them as "weak willed losers"?

*edit for ambiguous wording: By this I mean it seems to work for at least 50% of people, with the average being 3% weight loss.

The data shows 3% average for the best case scenario fitness regime they found as far as I can read.

For the weak willed comment, that was a reference to Pizza234's comment I was responding to earlier, not yours.

The 3% from the meta analysis above was not for a single "best case scenario fitness regime". It was a number calculated by pooling data from ~28 studies with varied methodologies. A significant portion of those studies employed dietary changes alone (no fitness regime).

Bariatric surgery patients almost universally have tried several other treatments before they try surgery.

Lately the medical establishment sounds like it has given up on crafting novel messaging/systems for helping people lose weight naturally, which is preposterously dumb when it is far more safe and effective than drugs when it works.