I love this! Recently I interviewed Dr. Christopher Ochner, a prominent obesity researcher at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Typically, I ask brief open-ended questions, and print the replies, and that’s it.

But I disagreed with Ochner on a couple key points, and after discussing at least some of them off camera — ‘cause it was an interview, not a debate — I decided to respond in blog form and share the link with him.

What follows is his reply, untouched by me, as a guest post. I intend to further respond, in another blog post, and we’ll have a colloquy going! He’ll be welcome to reply again, in whatever form he wishes, if at all.

My goal isn't to harangue the guy, who's been very generous with his time. But I have found that one contribution I have to make to clinicians, researchers, and othe professionals is to help inform them on the experience of obesity, to add to their erudition on its science.

By Dr. Christopher Ochner

I welcome Michael's position and am happy to see that he is one of the exceptional individuals who was able to regain a healthy body weight through lifestyle change (caloric restriction and increased physical activity). I don't disagree that some individuals can be successful in the long-term using this method.

However, my perspective comes from what we, as the supposed experts, can get most people to do most of the time for the long run.  Based on the data we have, only 2 percent to 5 percent of the individuals with obesity who are successful in losing a meaningful amount of weight (5 or more percent of initial body weight) are successful in keeping it off long-term using ANY kind of weight loss diet.  

Even fewer are as exceptional as Michael, who was able to get back to a healthy body mass index. Traditionally, the diets that strip people of their favorite foods show the least long-term success, but that's splitting hairs; [in the] long-term, no lifestyle-change diet is effective for the masses.  I despise that fact but I can't deny that it is fact.  

That's part of what drives me to do what I do. Myself and tons of other investigators are devoting their lives to finding a way to help more people.  I love that a small percentage of people are able to stick to restrictive diets but I'm just not satisfied with that. I'm still worried about and working for the other 95 percent of people who can't.