[grecy]

> is akin to saying: "If you never get in a car your chances of dying in a car accident are significantly reduced."

Very bad analogy.

It's more like saying "If you burn more gas each day than you put in, you'll eventually start burning up your reserve tank, (until you run out)."

> but not really helpful or meaningful.

It's extremely helpful and meaningful. For the massive majority of people that are overweight, they simply need to eat less calories. Not less food. Less calories. The original article here is showing what 200 calories looks like, so it's extremely helpful for people trying to eat less of them.

You would be shocked how many people have no idea a mountain of apples is equal to a small amount of alcohol, etc. Once they learn this, they lose weight.

Source: I lived with two girls who lost over 100lbs each at Weight Watchers, one of them became a WW representative, and for years I went to meetings with her as moral support. Over the years I've personally seen at least 1000 people go from being completely helpless with weight loss to losing somewhere between 50-200lbs each. All they did was eat less calories than they were burning. Nothing else. (WW obfuscates that with their points system, but it's just calories/50)