I think low calorie sweeteners are part of an attitude problem, too; the efforts to recreate what we think of as a "normal diet."

Baking a cake using sweeteners instead of sugar means we are still getting a heavy dose of white flour and seed oils. Atkins bars and shakes with sugar alcohols are known loss-stallers, and swapping them for candy bars might not be as much of a reduction as we think. Drinking diet soda instead of regular means we are still getting a big hit of sweet water that the body can react to with insulin release.

Earlier in my career, I was the fetcher of lunches from the deli: the huge numbers of "cheesecake and Tab" lunches I witnessed means these sweeteners may lower the carb load on paper, but aren't really making much of a dent in how people eat.