[o09rdk]

I have to agree this was done really poorly. Another example of why randomized controlled trials aren't always what they're cracked up to be.

Not sure if a junk food diet would fly, but they could have at least given both groups a gift card and some gifts (maybe the control could have received non-food items of equal value?) and had the same phone calls, but with some "neutral" questions in the no diet change group.

There are plenty of studies that do behavioral controls. Not sure why they didn't do it in this one. Especially when there's a large literature on waitlisting effects on depression (basically people who are waitlisted as opposed to assigned to a behavioral control tend to have the worst outcomes).