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I discuss a lot of the information in my intermittent fasting thread:
https://www.hairlosstalk.com/interact/threads/the-science-of-intermittent-fasting.98461/
But since you asked ...
The shift in the 1960s/1970s from a belief that obesity was a hormonal disorder, to a belief that obesity is about "calories in calories out", coupled with the ideology of low-fat diets, has been disastrous for people.
There are a lot of fat people out there, who wanted to lose weight, and followed the standard advice from the medical establishment (cut dietary fat, eat more grains, and do cardio), and they never lost weight. A lot of them actually gained weight. I feel sorry for them, they are obese -- sick and disfigured -- and not due to lack of effort. They have given it an honest effort and listened to their doctors.
I recall watching this Netflix documentary on obesity in America. This fat mother said she was worried about her fat kids. She wanted them to be healthier. She was making sure her kids ate a low-fat diet, and they were, but they were having corn flakes or some other cereal for breakfast, probably so-called "orange juice" as well. Her kids were getting fatter, in spite of their efforts. Some kids were doing cardio and not losing weight. It's sad. Their lives are being ruined, in spite of their efforts, because they listen to misguided doctors who advocate eating a small piece of bread with no butter and going for a jog.
If you do what the doctor might tell you, eat a small piece of bread with no butter and go out for a jog, you will lose weight in the short term. Then, your metabolism will crash, and you will be miserable and irritable and less competent. You will compensate by eating more food and will end up fatter than when you started. You'd be better off eating bacon and eggs.
Obesity is hormonal. It's a disease of fat metabolism. If your body is prevented from converting adipose fat into energy, it will increase your appetite, and decrease your metabolism, and eventually you will store twice as much adipose fat.
The solution is hormonal, enable your body to metabolize its own fat as energy:
- Low carb / high fat diets, which reduce insulin;
- Intermittent fasting, which reduces insulin;
- Long-term fasting, which reduces insulin;
- Vigorous exercises, such as high-intensity interval training and heavy weight lifting. Running is much better than jogging, and sprinting is better than running. When doctors tell you that "just getting out and walking is sufficient !" they're lying, probably just saying that because they have low expectations of people;
- Better sleep, and activities like yoga and massage therapy can help too, by relaxing the body and thus reducing cortisol, which ... leads to a positive feedback with better sleep;
You don't need to do all of the above. You can pick and choose but most likely the first one (high-fat diets) is absolutely essential, and then of the rest pick what works for you.
A lot of information can be found here and in subsequent videos:
As this knowledge becomes more and more widespread, due to people having success with it, more and more people will try it and have success with it. The obesity epidemic took off in the 1970s largely due to incorrect medical advice and dietary guidelines. We won't shift to a world where everyone can run a triathlon, but the body types of the 1970s and 1980s might become the norm again.
Separately, there is a drug called metformin that is being a lifesaver to a lot of diabetics. I wonder if they might soon start prescribing it to non-diabetics too. A guy I work with lost 30 Kg by taking metformin and having bacon+eggs for breakfast everyday instead of toast -- a two-prongedl approach.
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Calories out just dropped and they stopped losing weight. They were also going crazy, when the experiment was over they regained all the weight they had lost and then some more on top of that. 
