I do sympathise with people who have a physiological problem, or even those with a psychological reason for overeating. However they are in a minority and I lost count of the number of people who said "It's me glands" in my childhood, and even then I knew it was a cop-out. You don't hear that any more, it's gone out of fashion. I do hope this works but I know the underlying factors are often psychological - I've a friend who is obese, she went through drugs to stop her digesting dietary fat, later bariatric surgery, and she's still obese. She'll tell you that she knows her digesive system is more efficient than in others, while I lean more to an observation that thin people don't eat cheese and biscuits at midnight most days "just for a treat". I don't think that the psych aspect is addressed.
I did read about a study many years ago where children in a children's home were given free rein on what they ate. If they were given recognisable foods, they spent a few days going mad and troughing themselves stupid on (say) tinned peaches, but after a while they settled to a reasonably balanced diet. When highly appetising processed foods were introduced it all fell apart. The children weren't able to self regulate and did not find their own way to a balanced diet. It was postulated that the provision of highly nutritious and calorific foods in a form other than that required to recognise the food made it more difficult for the body to work out what was being eaten and regulate the appetite accordingly.
He's absolutely right. Pass any takeaway and look at the customers. They aren't the ones that you would think could afford to have someone else cook. Meanwhile the wealthy are at home knocking up a porcini and borlotti bean risotto that they "discovered last summer in Tuscany, and it's so easy and quick you won't believe it. More frascati? No? Driving, of course. Just the Pellegrino then."
