[smarkov]

While eating healthier things would probably help to an extent, nothing's stopping people from just eating more of those healthier foods and still becoming obese. Healthy or not, food is calories and a surplus of those calories will lead to weight gain.

[brazzy]

Technically correct but practically beside the point. That's not how humans work.

What stops people from just eating more of those healthier foods is that they make you feel full more quickly and longer with the same amount of calories.

[smarkov]

I agree that they make you feel full more quickly and for longer but a good amount of obese people don't overeat because they're hungry, they overeat because it's their way of dealing with problems. It's an unhealthy coping mechanism like alcohol and drug abuse and should be treated as such.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having higher food standards and healthier foods, I just don't think it'll help with obesity as much as you'd think.

[hombre_fatal]

I would be surprised if any of the large people in my life were overeating healthy foods like oats, chickpeas, bananas, lentils. Usually those were the things missing from their diet.

Frankly, it seems like low satiating, high dense foods are the only foods up to the task of making someone obese. e.g. The ease of drinking a liter of Coke vs eating that same amount of calories in beans.

I would be interested to see the food diary of someone who claims to overeat healthy food. I think it would illuminate our mass confusion about "healthy food". The healthy foods I think of are the kinds you can eat ad libitum without much consequence.