Mark Haub is professor of nutrition at Kansas State University. To prove, apparently, that nutrition is more important than calories, he's sharing about his latest diet, which features nothing but junk food. From a US News web page:

[Haub] traded fruits and veggies for junk food to show that losing weight is simply a matter of arithmetic: calories in vs. calories out, whether they come from Twinkies or tomatoes. Although he's lost 15 pounds in one month, he doesn't advocate that others follow his lead. Says Haub: "I want people to look at what I'm doing and decide, is this healthy?..."

Perhaps his plan is twisted genius, but my reaction is to recall "A Clockwork Orange," in which a depraved criminal is subjected to scenes of horrific violence in hopes of curing his lust for it. The analogy isn't perfect, but I don't see how this line of thought ends well either.

My experience, in part, is that junk food begats eating more junk food, both in volume and expanding habit. Even as a thought experiment, it's a bad road to go down.

Another element of my experience, meanwhile, runs strongly counter to one of Haub's points, that obesity reduces easily to "calories in vs. calories out." My body reacts differently to different substances, and the more refined something is, the more likely my body is to want always more. Technically, that may meet the arithmetic theory, but if my brain is constantly militating for more, it won't matter.

I concede that my biochemistry isn't like everyone's, or even the majority of overweight people's. But I read Haub's suggestion as asserting that everyone's biochemistry IS the same, so that eating is merely a math problem. 

No, it isn't. Not for everyone. No, no no.