Part 2: But the hard data in this case will require you to blast a few myths. CICO is important. Mention why CICO can be difficult to attain because of... LIES being spewed during years. I still found in one of my children's books, a food pyramid that had bread and cereals in the bottom. That book almost told my students that complex carbs and sugars are less bad for health than fat: I made them correct the book and explained to them what was wrong with it. You can include LOTS of science here again, and this time you've got another villain, and a hero: Ancel Keys vs. John Yudkin.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081/John-Yudkin-the-man-who-tried-to-warn-us-about-sugar.html  You'll have to investigate this one, but in short: people have been receiving wrong advice on nutrition during decades, and it's time to settle things right.  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin So, after crushing sugar and complex carbs, and explaining to everyone why it's so hard to control CICO unless they ban that stuff from their diet, because it's extremely hard to count the calories in when the calories being eaten are addictive and meant to be that way... you can go on with more data. For example: stressors. How cortisol and lack of sleep affect fat loss. And since you're into hormones, you can begin with the lie that "breakfast is the most important meal of the day", and talk about fasting. This is a private company, so you'll have to check out the data here from different sources, but I really recommend you to do so:  https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/how-do-we-gain-weight-calories-part-1/  Their info on fasting is really comprehensive. Again, for your class you'll have to find the scientific studies that back these data. They exist, I guarantee you:  https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-a-history-part-i/ Thing is, because people are told lies and myths such as "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" (invented by the Kellogg's company, literally, in order to sell cheap carbs and sugars as food): http://www.gnolls.org/2181/the-breakfast-myth-part-2-the-art-and-science-of-not-eating-breakfast/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/breakfast-most-important-history_n_5910054.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/upshot/sorry-theres-nothing-magical-about-breakfast.html?_r=0 Again: focus on the fact that people have been lied to by food companies, in order to make them eat more than they need, and in time, they have worked on those nutritionally empty foods, so they are addictive. Addictive and fattening food that doesn't nourish people's bodies is a recipe for disaster: the body lacks macro and micronutrients, so it demands real food. But the brain is hijacked into wanting addictive food, so the cycle continues. Since being overweight adds to the negative feelings for many people, unable to move properly or do certain sports, they calm their feelings with... yes. Food. Vicious cycle. After all that, I'd recommend you to devise a weight-loss plan based on the psychological needs of the person, trying to control the addiction and the stressors. If you focus on the fact that most people have been lied to, that the companies are evil, and that poor fat people are being killed for money, you should be able to introduce as much scientific fact as possible without being the enemy yourself. At last: how to crush the HAES notion. OK this crap with HAES was born in the 90s (I can remember, but you'll have to investigate this one) because something wrong happened in the fashion world. Before the 90s, models used to be beautiful. Slim, but beautiful. In the 90s, anorexia started to be popularly know, and average-weight women (not slim, but not fat) were called "fat" for the first time (Jennifer Lawrence being asked to lose weight, Tyra Banks). So, what happened is because average-weight women were being called "fat", people started accepting fatness as healthy. If with "fat" you imply Scarlett Johansson, of course it's OK to be "fat". Problem is, those people are not overweight, they are, in Johansson's case, just not slim, and in Lawrence's case, thin, just not "catwalk thin". So... people have to recover the concept of what FAT really is, accept it's unhealthy (data, data, data... use pictures from here, use pictures from sepsis, use HORROR tales of diabetes). This one made me cringe: http://www.endofshiftreport.com/2015/07/a-colleague-of-mine-related-tale-of-pt.html If you want an A+++, try to devise, instead of a diet or nutrition plan, something focused on the addiction, or "how to have such an interesting life that you forget to eat". Now that's going to be difficult. But there is something I read at Justine Musk's blog that I found very interesting: http://justinemusk.com/2014/11/17/heroines-journey-soul-happiness/ When you think about the things we do to feel better (eating, shopping, cruising the Internet, sex, gambling) the soaring rates of obesity, addiction and consumer debt underscore the fact that we are not a happy people, no matter how many blog posts we consume or seminars and workshops we attend. What if we accepted the fact that we are not meant to be happy all the time? Or even that, sometimes, happiness must emerge from periods of unhappiness? What if we recognized the dark times as a process of initiation into a deeper wisdom, that can serve to heal others as well as ourselves? The hero and heroine’s journeys are not quests to be happy. They seek to restore what was lost. The hero ventures out into the world, and returns with a boon to heal a wounded community. In so doing, he heals himself, through learning how to lose or sacrifice that self for his community.  So, I would focus on the fact that most people are trained to not feel discomfort. That makes us fragile. And how to train self-discipline by doing things you do not want to do, in order to gain the mind-muscle to use said discipline for things you want to do. At the end, focus on how self-discipline can be trained. Mention that yes, because of everything that you've mentioned, more self-discipline is required by some people to lose weight, but how this shouldn't be an excuse. Find examples of people with thyroid problems who are slim or who have lost weight, and how they have fought the bad moments. Inspire them. If possible, try to make them fast. First 12/12, then 16/8, then 22/2 one day. If any of them is addicted to food, they will notice that it's easier to fast than it is to eat the fabled small six meals a day. People do that less often because they've been lied to think that not eating for ten seconds after waking up in the morning will slow their metabolism. Filthy lie. If they are with you at this point, it's time to give the motivational speech on responsibility, and how although it's difficult, people can lose weight as long as they work hard. It's their life what's a stake: even worse, it's their children's lives. I don't know if this was of any help, but I really think what you want to do is generous and good, and I really hope you make it. If you help just one person, it will be a good deed done. Sorry for the speech. I think the OP is young and idealistic, and if she's going to try, I wish her success, but I don't want her being scolded and getting a bad grade only for having good intentions. That said, I must be banned.