Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight loss

The more you research/learn about obesity, the worse it is, much like smoking. One of the most depressing stats is that dieting does not get easier with time. The probability of eventually regaining all the weight eventually converges to 100%. Even if you're successful for 2 years, people still regain by year 4, 5, etc. The body never resists trying to regain the weight. GLP-1 drugs are the best hope yet.

This is self-defeating and untrue. Many people, myself included, have kept weight off for decades. But you don’t get there by thinking of your new lifestyle as “dieting”. You need to learn to love eating healthy foods in a healthy amount, and getting exercise. Eventually you can get to a place where the old foods and habits are simply unappealing.

Yeah, what you said is key - and I can also vouch that it's absolutely possible to keep it away for good, aside from small setbacks that almost everyone experiences, since we’re not robots.

The word diet is problematic because most people see it as something temporary. But you can't just eat healthy to lose weight and then go back to old habits, expecting the weight to stay off. That just doesn't make sense.

Also for many people, food isn’t just about pleasure - it’s also a way to deal with boredom, stress, depression, and so on. So even if someone sticks to a diet, if the psychological root causes are still there, it's going to be hard to stay away from junk food.