First, 5kcal is about 1.7grams of meat. I assume you mean 500kcal which is equivalent to 500 Calories.
Second, 500kcal of meat is about a 6oz ribeye cooked. Easy for anyone to down.
I meant like 100oz of steak. I was unaware the measure was called kcal, before right now, and looking it up on Wikipedia, and was using the k generically, as in instead of typing, ",000 ," since it's always just, "Calorie," otherwise (after high school, the g/C ones may as well cease to exist ). My apologies.
Most anyone could, if spread through the day, eat 5,000 calories of refined carbs. They're not filling, they don't give long-term energy, they do no good for your overall health (unless also eaten with plenty of other things, in which case you can't eat too much, because the other stuff will fill you)...but they can and will mostly go straight to fat (and reduced insulin response), if eaten more than occasionally.
Third, completely agree that simple carbs are much easier to overindulge on. That wasn't what the poster I quoted said.
The other poster, rather correctly, noted that people eat too many carbs, and that both gets them fat and keeps them fat. It's mostly carbs because that's the easiest way to get there. It's not a matter of some indulgance, as it is a constant diet. Sweet cereal here, cookies there, sandwich that's 80% bread there, big fries with lunch, half a gallon or more of sugar water drinks a day...
Unless you force yourself, it would be difficult to get a great overabundance of calories from real food, because you just won't have room, unless all you do is hang out at a buffet all day, and don't exercise (exercise, as little as walking, can reduce the feeling of hunger).
Fourth, just fat can be appetizing. Love me some olive oil and vinegar dressing on my <1000kcal shredded iceberg salads. Hell, I could snack on peanuts, almonds, walnuts and cashews all day and easily eat more than I could eating simple carbs.
That's not just fat. Just fat = bottle of oil, or tub of lard.
Fifth, you are still saying that people get fat by consuming too many calories. The mechanism driving people to over consume may be blamed on simple carbs
Blame thermodynamics for that one.
however, I think that it boils down to willpower or lack thereof.
We are animals, and we only have so much of any given chemicals we may need to stave off urges at any time. Being trained from children to consider unhealthy food as "good" food, the willpower will not be there for many, if not most. Willpower itself is a finite resource at any time, and for any given need, is limited in any given person, to varying amounts.
The quitting smoking analogy is quite apt. There's no need to, "believe," it. We know that dopamine gets released with the mere suggestion of a liked food, and eating it causes even greater reactions. That's one of the reasons some people overeat when they are depressed. However, what we have in the U.S. is a case where those foods are very bad for you, and if eaten until feeling full at a meal, will be way too much. Changing to eating salads and nuts or whatever is not merely like having an addict go cold turkey, it
is that. Some people can just up and do that; some can't.
That doesn't mean those that can't are helpless, but that just saying, "count calories," or, "don't eat so much," isn't going to work, for most of the younger generation in the U.S. that are fat (and have been since their earliest memories!), and some of the older, even those actually willing. If they can pull it off, they'll just gain it back, by not changing their habits enough in the process (as happens all the time). They're conditioned from a young age, possibly mere months old, to only eat junk (
it's all learned). Long-term changes in what and how they eat are going to be needed to be able to keep it off, to gradually learn to be satisfied by foods that aren't unhealthy, and eating practices that aren't unhealthy; and/or to replace the response from eating with another (like how some people get really into exercising after they lose weight--they're trading one rush for another).
Drivers ed classes still show those Blood on the Highway videos, health classes should show videos of diabetics having their feet amputated.
They'll probably be desensitized to it, soon, anyway. All those problems are already being made into normal, and parents want acceptance all-around to minimize their work. How do you make it effective, then? I'd be all for it anyway, I just see it going down like faces of meth--lots of cringing by onlookers, but nobody who might try meth really giving a damn.