Why do people resist the idea that carbs are worse than fat?

My own experience is that I can eat as much butter (real butter), bacon, olive oil, and other fats as I want and my weight won't change. But as soon as I start to eat bread and potatoes, I can easily gain 10 pounds.

This is a very complex issue. For every single person there are many factors involved, like personal make, hormones, age, genetics, even how your mother ate when you were in the womb.

On the big scale, these studies are trying to find the cause for the obesity (and heart disease) epidemics. The accumulating evidence is pointing to carbs as the culprit.

The very people who were given all the authority and trust, and who were supposed to protect human life, actively killed people by pushing carbs as healthy and fats as unhealthy.

They directly caused spiking obesity, the #1 medical issue in our society.

Repeat after me: The biggest health issue in our society was directly caused by the health authorities. This means doctors, medical researchers, and governments.

Heart disease, cancer, and obesity are all linked to carbs now. Millions and millions of people have died because they followed the advice of the scientific authorities.

When the general public figures out how wrong the scientific and medical authorities were for SO LONG and SO LOUDLY... public trust in science is going to be maimed for generations.

If you can't trust them on the #1 public health issue - the #1 killer of humans - what can you trust them on?

1 - People relate fat the nutrient to fat the body type because they share the word "fat". Not much to do there. In high school I was taught that carbohydrates were "energy" and fat was "waste". People should probably be taught the right way our biological systems operate.

2 - Medical authorities have worked with the best science they had available at the time, and are almost always managed by bureaucrats, not physicians. This isn't limited to the governmental level; hospitals, medical organizations, medical schools... the people in charge often have administrative training, not medical training. As a subpoint; sure, medical authorities have led us astray with nutrition information, but let's not jump to the conclusion that they have done something intentionally evil here.

3 - It's hard to prove any one way is the right way because of so many variables, including genetics, activity level, co-morbidities, and so on. More importantly, when something is right for 95% of people, that also means it is wrong for 5% of people. In the absence of easily testable datum, those anecdotes get a lot of attention. And even if it were easily testable, 5% of the time it would be wrong.

To me, the key is two-fold:

1 - People need to be educated about the facts of how their biological systems function. They need to know how calories work, insulin and blood sugar regulate, and gain a general appreciation of the science of their bodies.

2 - People need to be willing to "listen to their bodies" and experiment. That's the only way to know what really works for you, because you ARE different than everyone else. A healthy diet isn't just about finding mathematically optimal foods, it's about finding stuff you like to eat, that fills you up, that you can eat in moderation, that is easy to make. You need to be willing to mix health and convenience, taste and availability, etc... and that takes a bit of time to figure out.