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But long-term, 10, 20 30 years out? I can't name a single friend who has successfully dieted short term that has kept it off long term.

• taneq 9y ago
  Is 30 years a reasonable expectation? Does someone who loses weight in their 50s have to literally die of old age before you'd grant that they'd 'kept it off'?
  • aantix 9y ago
    Actually... Yes. Obesity related complication occurr with excess weight. So, if they were at their ideal weight at 50 yrs old and gained it back at 80 when they also incurred high blood pressure and diabetes, then they weren't successful. That's why it's difficult. Most can lose weight at some point in their lives. But the weight eventually comes back, along with the other complications.
    • wutbrodo 9y ago
      This seems like an odd way to split the data. Is it not the case that healthy-weight people sometimes gain weight in their old age? Your claim seems unfalsifiable: Whatever mechanism is at play that makes healthy-weight people gain weight later in life could also be at play for people who lost weight, and 30 years later regained it in their old age. To put it another way, it's a silly bar to use to say that weight-loss programs must move their adherents level of health wrt weight past those of normal slim people, and that any weight gain from a former dieter is proof of a diet's failure of efficacy (while any weight gain from a formerly-healthy-weight, non-dieter is just happenstance). It's tough to look at just the existing data to tease this out, but if you need to resort to a bar as absurdly stringent as that to make your point, I'm afraid it's not a very convincing one.