Comment Re:This study allows writing a hypothesis (Score 1) 588
I didn't mean to imply health from BMI, but rather the general mass to height ratio - were these people who were carrying significantly more or less than average weight for their height?
I could have said body fat percentage, but that's a lot harder to calculate accurately - and if you're going to be inaccurate you may as well make it easy. If the study were packed with people in the 30+ BMI range, maybe the difference in weight loss wasn't really attributable to the specifics of the diet (we're talking a net caloric deficit of 78 calories a day - half a soda or fruit juice drink).
Obesity *is* a problem, as is physical conditioning. But basing dietary recommendations on studies which don't understand the actual mechanics and science of nutrition is a bad idea. It was a bad idea when they used it to create the "food pyramid" and it's still a bad idea today.