[sinkspur]

The danger from obesity comes from having a lot of food of high energy content easily available combined with little physical activity.

Translation: "high energy" foods are carbohydrates.

Reducing carbohydrates will result in weight loss.

Atkins runs counter to some of your contentions, aruanan, and there are simply too many Atkins students (like myself) who eat bacon, and cheese, and red meat, and salads, and lose weight.

I've heard every nutritionist in the world. "Low fat" diets usually equal high carbs, which is why low fat diets result in even more obesity.

[Thorondir]

Your body can take sugars and turn them into fat. It can take fat and turn it into sugar, but the brain does not like that as much as regular sugar. However, it is easier for your body to store fat as fat, since there is no conversion necessary. Turning sugar into fat uses up some calories in the process. I hear so many people fight and argue about which diet is best (My older brother is an atkins fanatic). My wife, who holds a Master's in Dietetics goes for the low fat thing, except with her diabetic patients. Either way, it's a lifestyle change that makes the difference, and a person has to exercise to be healthy. It doesn't mean you have to be a fanatic athlete, just get the blood pumping a few times per week. Your metabolism then adjusts to turn that fuel to good use instead of storing it for when you decide to do something.

[aruanan]

Translation: "high energy" foods are carbohydrates.

Fat is the highest energy food, having more than double the energy content per gram (9kcal/g) than do carbohydrates (4kcal/g). The problem is having a diet with an energy intake that chronically exceeds energy output. In the context of such a diet, unless someone is an actively growing child (or body builder) and is putting on weight in flesh and bones, the weight gain will be in body fat.

It's as simple as a bank account: If you put in (absorbed nutrients, not consumed nutrients) more than you take out, your deposits will grow. If you take out (via energy expenditure) more than you put in, your deposits will shrink.