Starve 'n' Sweat Cannot Argue with Itself

Being dangerously overweight is all down to bad diet rather than a lack of exercise, according to a trio of doctors who have reopened the debate about whether food, sedentary lifestyles or both are responsible for the obesity epidemic.

Where to begin?

Best to deal with what I emphasized. You may not be surprised to learn, that is not a debate. That happens when two or more opposing views are aired. [Why's the @besity crusade either busy chasing or faking non-debates? Is there anything it isn't faking?] Calories in, calories out, or the diet-weight hypothesis refers to the construction of body size as the product of calorie intake minus calorie output.

They are both the same idea, calorie or energy manipulation, via opposing ends (of the same branch). Anything which deals with directly manipulating energy is just a different means to bring about said aim-that includes, stomach removal/gastric re-routing, gastric binding along with most slimming drugs.

They all advance on the same principle, reduce the amount of energy coming in and/or increase the amount going out.

What would be another idea? Theoretically, it'd have to be altering the mechanics that produce weight to change that outcome. In concrete terms, I'm not sure. Everything has been so centered on starve 'n' sweat deliberately, and our grasp of the interplay of metabolic systems so limited, that its hard to get in the mindset of other ideas.

Other routes have been gone down, which could signify other ideas.
 
Manipulating gut flora via bacterial transfer gut, obviously doesn't target fat tissue directly. It appears to have the same mechanical flaw as repeating energy manipulation-homeostasis unravels it, though there maybe a subset of people in whom its affective.

Seems that gut flora as well as acting "like an organ" is a cog in metabolic function, not a driver of metabolic outcomes.

An even further outsider is through something like meditation, yoga, or other practices that soothe/stimulate/refresh the nervous system. That pathway's a long shot because it doesn't promise any amount of weight reversal, though has the potential to if it can be directed at the right place. As usual exceptions apply.

Restorative therapies can lessen hunger and/or appetite because they target/affect/manipulate the nervous system. Cals in/out-starve 'n' sweat-targets fat tissue via suppressing hunger and appetite. Meditation and other restorative therapies affect the system that carries the various messaging and biochemically mediates the operations of metabolic function. Thus supporting greater integrity of function. 

The latter works with the body the former disrupts it. That's the "battle" as in "battle with my weight." Not your will, but your body's metabolic self regulation.

It could be comparable to taking on your immune system [starve 'n' sweat] versus supporting and improving its level of function [restorative therapies].

Starve versus sweat is a non-argument that has become sterile even to many committed fat phobes. It speaks of people who are stuck in a mental hole they refuse to get out of. It's back and forth, round and round is made from ideology above biology. Neither starving nor sweating is the route to reversing weight. Blame is not an issue, even if it mattered.

This is anatomy, not morality.