[rjmunro]

"All else being equal" doesn't seem to really happen in practise. Some mechanism means this doesn't work. Maybe Swapping 2 sodas (diet or not) for e.g. 2 glasses of water means you will have less sugar dependence over time and will get healthier all around.

[heyparkerj]

It does happen in practice, but unfortunately because it doesn't happen in practice on average, the WHO has opted away from educating people on the nuances and instead continue this maddening war about which is worse.

The other issue is that there's so much variance. Are you making an effort at improving the quality of your food and made up that 200 calories with nutrient rich items? Too bad, you still aren't losing weight, so WHO declares that diet soda is ineffective for weight loss, articles summarize and declare that artificial sweeteners are bad for you, and you still get people thinking that diet soda is worse for you than regular soda.

[SirMaster]

Why doesn't it happen?

I meal prep for all my meals. All my food is measured out and counted beforehand.

I started exchanging regular soda for zero sugar soda and did not change a single thing about my diet otherwise.

[rjmunro]

"Doesn't happen in practise" probably didn't fully describe what I meant - i.e. on average across populations if you tell people to "just" change their drinks for diet drinks, it seems other parts of the diet compensate for the lost calories.

> All my food is measured out and counted beforehand.

That's great, but that is not representative of most people.

[SirMaster]

That's what personally I don't like about information like this.

How can I apply it to my own situation then I wonder?

It seems like rarely does information that applies to people in general ever seems to apply to me in a relevant way.