Eat less, run more. Watch your energy balance. That's what Americans have been told for decades, yet obesity keeps rising.
NYT: Obesity Rises Despite All Efforts to Fight It, U.S. Health Officials SayNewly published data shows that in 2013 and 2014 fully 38 percent of American adults were obese, a staggering number and a new record. The numbers have been rising steadily since the early 80s when around 15 percent were obese.
What we eat determines how much we want to eat. This is a question of food quality - and thenthe quantity can take care of itself, via our natural hunger- and satiety signals.
It's a question of the hormonal regulation of weight, not calorie counting. Obesity is not a physics or mathematics problem, it's biology.
Until society gets the fundamental questions right we'll never arrive at the solution.