I think this is the sad truth of the matter (at least for now). People tend to fall into one of two camps: 1) Those who believe that obesity is largely (if not entirely) the obese person's fault; 2) Those who believe that obesity is heavily influenced by factors outside of conscious control, and therefore, there's nothing to be done about it.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Some people are luckier than others, genetically or epigenetically. The unlucky ones will put on fat more easily, and they will have a much harder time losing it. So that means they need to work twice as hard (if not 100x as hard) to keep it off. It's a shitty break, but it's the truth.

I grew up fat. Losing that fat took nothing short of a Herculean (and borderline unsustainable) dietary effort. I mean, I lived like an ascetic monk, depriving myself of any and all pleasurable food, for the better part of a decade. I worked out like a crazy person. And even today, keeping off the fat requires a constant vigil over everything I eat, and the amount of exercise I do. I wasn't responsible for getting fat in the first place -- I lost a prenatal dice roll -- but I did take responsibility for battling the bulge.

"Continually reiterating the thermodynamic dietary hypothesis to me (energy eaten minus energy expended) does not help. I doubt it helps anyone except possibly those who do not already know what a kilocalorie is."

Agreed. It's also willfully reductionist, and it smacks of passive-aggressive moralizing. To me, rattling off the calories-in-calories-out line is no more helpful than calling obese people lazy, stupid, irresponsible, or sinful. (And in basically 90% of the contexts in which someone says it, that's the subtextual insinuation.) It's unproductive. It's an attempt to close the case summarily, and this case needs to stay open.

There are those who would deny it, unto their dying breath. You do not appear to be one of them, and that's the first step. The saying I like is that weight loss is simple (subtext: simple to understand), but not easy (subtext: not easy to execute). Sure, there are tonnes of factors that go into what causes someone to overeat. And fad diets, or even the whole concept of "dieting" need to DIAF (it's lifestyle changes or nothing). And shaming people for being fat might actually be counterproductive. But being at a healthy weight is there for the taking, if you want it. If you choose not to be a healthy weight, fair enough. Just don't complain when you have to (rightfully) pay for two airplane tickets because you take up that much space.

And just for the record, there are many of us for whom weight loss had nothing to do with good fortune. We were fat, we had bad eating habits (snacking unconsciously, bingeing on soda, etc, etc). We've been there, we recognized what caused us to be fat, and we turned it around through hard work and perseverence. Didn't even have to get a gut biome implant or exercise like a fiend, just simple reduction of intake.