Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is your claim as true for people who care about their health? The kind of person who has the dedication to do intermittent fasting probably has the dedication to do a fair amount of exercise.
I started intermittent fasting around a year ago, and usually I do do reasonable amount of exercise. I had a health review as part of my work three months after I started. I really wanted to stop, because the fasting was difficult (I was doing two days a week). While before I was fairly healthy, my blood pressure has always been a bit high, as with my cholesterol. After fasting they were both gone down to good levels…
IF is about managing appetite mostly, as the hormone that plays a large role in driving hunger (ghrelin) is highly habitual; the more often you eat, the more often you're going to be hungry. So by reducing the time-window in which you eat, you reduce the window when you'll feel hungry, which can dramatically aid diet adherence.
But that's more the everyday form of IF. If you're on a eat-stop-eat type protocol and fast once or twice a week, you're probably using it to ensure you maintain a caloric deficit each week. You're bundling all your reduction in food consumption into one day a week instead of ensuring you're at TDEE-400 calories every day.