> people overwhelmingly agree that eating healthy is the first step in weight control.
It is an interesting thing. I know it is anecdotal but if you ask my mum how to loose weight her mental model is that you have to do more sports. That is her first reaction. And when asked what kind of sports she overwhelmingly defaults to ab crunches. (because your tummy is where you want to lose the weight, obviously that is what you need to exercise)
Now of course we know that you are not going to ab crunch your way to a healthy weight if you are eating too much. And if you try, you are most likely won't do enough exercise consistently enough to make a dent. And if you somehow do, most likely you will unconsciously adjust your caloric intake to maintain your current weight. And lo and behold my mum struggled to maintain a healthy weight all her life.
What I'm saying is that while it is indeed the consensus that eating healthy is the first step in weight control, maybe not everyone has internalised it quite yet? Of course one anecdote is not enough to say anything, but I would not be surprised if my mom is not alone in having unhelpful mental patterns about weight loss.
In fact, just the fact that you said "eating healthy" is tricky in itself. Because my mom would have said she is eating healthy! She read in an article that white sugar is bad, so she replaced it with brown. She heard that red meats are bad, so she only cooked with poultry. She heard that fats are bad, so she only used oil.
Now of course we know that in this context "eating healthy" is mostly about portion sizes. Doesn't matter what kind of sugar your pie is made with if you are eating too much of it.
What I'm saying with this is that even if "people overwhelmingly agree that eating healthy is the first step in weight control" they might have very different notions in their head what it means to "eating healthy". For example my mum would have professed that she is indeed eating healthy, after all there is plenty of vegies under all that cream sauce. (Doing this while serving you a manifestly unhealthy portion, and not even flinching.)
So we just have to be careful what it means when "people overwhelmingly agree" on this or that.
It is an interesting thing. I know it is anecdotal but if you ask my mum how to loose weight her mental model is that you have to do more sports. That is her first reaction. And when asked what kind of sports she overwhelmingly defaults to ab crunches. (because your tummy is where you want to lose the weight, obviously that is what you need to exercise)
Now of course we know that you are not going to ab crunch your way to a healthy weight if you are eating too much. And if you try, you are most likely won't do enough exercise consistently enough to make a dent. And if you somehow do, most likely you will unconsciously adjust your caloric intake to maintain your current weight. And lo and behold my mum struggled to maintain a healthy weight all her life.
What I'm saying is that while it is indeed the consensus that eating healthy is the first step in weight control, maybe not everyone has internalised it quite yet? Of course one anecdote is not enough to say anything, but I would not be surprised if my mom is not alone in having unhelpful mental patterns about weight loss.
In fact, just the fact that you said "eating healthy" is tricky in itself. Because my mom would have said she is eating healthy! She read in an article that white sugar is bad, so she replaced it with brown. She heard that red meats are bad, so she only cooked with poultry. She heard that fats are bad, so she only used oil.
Now of course we know that in this context "eating healthy" is mostly about portion sizes. Doesn't matter what kind of sugar your pie is made with if you are eating too much of it.
What I'm saying with this is that even if "people overwhelmingly agree that eating healthy is the first step in weight control" they might have very different notions in their head what it means to "eating healthy". For example my mum would have professed that she is indeed eating healthy, after all there is plenty of vegies under all that cream sauce. (Doing this while serving you a manifestly unhealthy portion, and not even flinching.)
So we just have to be careful what it means when "people overwhelmingly agree" on this or that.