While no individual person may deliberately do this, the gestalt does a motte & bailey with this, where "calories in = calories out" means that people are wrong to think about how different calories affect the body differently and interact with all the feedback loops in the body and dieting is just a matter of applying willpower harder and eating less, until you challenge it, at which point it's suddenly just a tautological thermodynamic truth that apparently is being thrown into the discussion for basically no reason and with no particular purpose in mind.
It really needs to just be retired. At its best its an unhelpful tautological statement, at its worst, inflammatory and thought-terminating. Not much reason to keep dragging it in to every diet discussion.
It really needs to just be retired. At its best its an unhelpful tautological statement, at its worst, inflammatory and thought-terminating. Not much reason to keep dragging it in to every diet discussion.