There are all sorts of theories regarding weight loss and there are lots of different attitudes held by various individuals regarding obesity. It's hard to say what works and what's popular without conducting some kind of poll or doing some kind of research, but there are general rules of politeness regarding the topic of obesity which seem to be taken more seriously as the size of the obese population grows. It may have always been that the overweight portion of the population has collectively outweighted the less heavy portion of the population, but it seems in recent years that the overweight population has come to outnumber those who are not considered obese. This has resulted in fads such as fat acceptance, the term body shaming, and a number of other what might be called cultural memes meant to make fat individuals feel more comfortable in society. Oh, and by the way, it's considered rude to use the word fat in reference to overweight individuals, but.... oh well....