Total rethink needed on dieting: scientists

True. But not the way these folks are going about it.

Everything you know about dieting is wrong, say US scientists who have devised a new formula for calculating calories and weight loss that they hope will revolutionize the way people tackle obesity.

Obesity rates have doubled worldwide in the past 30 years, coinciding with a growing food surplus, and the ensuing epidemic has sparked a multibillion dollar weight loss industry that has largely failed to curb the problem.

Current standards in the United States, where two thirds of people are overweight or obese, advise people that cutting calories by a certain amount will result in a slow and steady weight loss over time.

But that advice fails to account for how the body changes as it slims down, burning less energy and acquiring a slower metabolism, researchers told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver.

The result is a plateau effect that ends up discouraging dieters and sending them back into harmful patterns of overeating.

A reason this is such hogwash is that the "plateau effect" has not only been known forever (almost), but that it can be anticipated with certainty by one who did not know of it if they understood the relationship between weight loss and the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Everything we know about weight loss is wrong because the recommended levels of caloric intake are based on faulty assumptions.

This prevents people from even losing enough weight to get to the plateau.

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