Another anecdote showing that “just eat less/exercise more” isn’t the silver bullet and that genetics gives people various advantages/disadvantages to controlling weight. My brother (2 years younger) grew up with the same parents, in the same household, playing the same sports, and eating the same food as myself. Yet I was always the “skinny” one and he was always the “big” one. We grew up with virtually the exact same environmental variables, yet our body types were always so different. This is further evidence that genetics play a large role and what works for one person may not work for another when it comes to weight loss/gain. So if your diet works for you, great… just don’t assume that the same diet or eating habits will work for everyone else.
Shifting gears a bit, the USDA just completed a study on the estimated effect that a sugar tax would have on obesity:
A tax-induced 20-percent price increase on caloric sweetened beverages could cause an average reduction of 37 calories per day, or 3.8 pounds of body weight over a year, for adults and an average of 43 calories per day, or 4.5 pounds over a year, for children. Given these reductions in calorie consumption, results show an estimated decline in adult overweight prevalence (66.9 to 62.4 percent) and obesity prevalence (33.4 to 30.4 percent), as well as the child at-risk-for-overweight prevalence (32.3 to 27.0 percent) and the overweight prevalence (16.6 to 13.7 percent).
