Diets have been oversold and those who have been deceived by them have had their willpower to effectively lose weight undermined. Ever since the 1965 CDC study we have known that the rate of obesity among the lowest economic brackets was five times as great as among the highest. We eat out of emotional needs. We eat too much when we are happy. We eat too much when we are sad.
Food is connected to our emotional state.
There is a lot less social pressure to maintain a lean weight in the Midwest and in rural areas. When humans were first around on the planet earth, those that survived did so because they were able to store fat during the summer when food was plentiful and have that fat to burn off during the winter when food was scarce. Evolution reinforces the body's urge to eat the things it needs to survive. But then humans learned to control their environment, we developed agriculture and damned up water supplies. But, our body still operates as if we need to store fat for the lean times.