Dietary Approaches to Obesity

Abstract

The treatment of obesity demands a negative energy balance, which obviously necessitates reducing the quantity of food intake. Yet the optimal diet composition quality for weight loss is far from known. The major controversy seems to be between choosing low-fat or low-carbohydrate diets, with additional debates on the importance of the glycemic index and the amounts of dairy products and calcium. It is evident from many large, randomized trials that the "best diet" that can suit everyone has yet to be identified. The different options for low-calorie diets should be prescribed on an individual basis, in order to best fit each patient's personal preferences. All hypocaloric regimens are suitable, as long as they work, for any given subject. The problem, of course, is long-term maintenance and adherence to an altered lifestyle.

Legislative approaches to tackling the obesity epidemic

“…The efficacy of these interventions (with the exception of surgery) to provide sustainable results remains questionable. 6,11 These interventions also fail to recognize the obesogenic environment, which includes widespread availability of energy-dense, high-fat foods, de creased opportunities for physical activity (e.g., labour-saving devices) and increased sedentary behaviour. 6,12 Given the recent rise in the prevalence of obesity, it is unlikely that the obesity epidemic is due to metabolic or genetic changes; therefore, it must be due to normal responses to the obesogenic environment.…”

Purified egg protein supplementation has beneficial effects on body composition, metabolism and eating behavior and results in a more sustained weight loss than low fat diet

“…Diet and exercise remain the cornerstone of the management of obesity [1]. There has been by the past a lot of controversies about the best dietary approach [2]. Large recent studies have specified the effectiveness of the different diets that can be used in the long term: low in fats or sugars [3], Mediterranean [4], or moderately enriched in proteins (resulting in intakes of 1.2 to 1.6 g / kg / day) [5].…”