Italian people are among the least overweight people in the OECD countries, and have a heavily carb based diet.
(I think the same applies to Japanese and Korean, but I think there could be a prevalent genetic factor there.)
That's not to say that fat makes you obese, just that carbs, per se, don't. Eating too much does.
We all learned that fats are bad in school, along with the food pyramid. Sadly, almost all you learned about losing weight was wrong. If you're curious, read one of the books by Gary Taubes, the author of the NYT op ed. "Why we get fat" is a good read. If you really want to lose weight, keto (high fat/low carb/moderate protein) is a great way to go (I lost 60 pounds).
