In the 12 years Dr Nicholas Fuller has worked as an obesity researcher and specialist, the landscape has changed dramatically; the old "eat less, move more" prescription for weight loss needs to be completely overhauled, he says, because while it did get results they were not long term.

“What we currently do doesn’t work. If it did work, we wouldn’t see dieting as one of the number one contributors to accelerating weight-gain or obesity going up,” says Fuller, the program leader of the University of Sydney’s Boden Collaboration for Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise & Eating Disorders.

What we currently do doesn't work, says Dr Nick Fuller. Credit:Getty

“Now, there’s even greater research showing that intentional weight-loss is accelerating the (obesity) problem,” says Fuller, who has explored the subject in his two previous books, Interval Weight Loss and Interval Weight Loss for Life.

“You get weight-loss,” Fuller says. But, simply eating less or dieting, as many of these patients had tried in its various forms, didn’t work long-term. Eventually, they would regain the same amount of weight, if not more.