geauxtohell
Choose your weapon.
It's the billing of insurance companies where the quacks make their dough. What better way to bill more than to keep people coming back for their happy pills?
It doesn't matter that a person could be just as well treated with a lifestyle change and some talk therapy that doesn't involve taking a pill for the rest of their lives but that's not making any money for doctors and drug companies is it?
What better way to make then happy then to come back for their hypertension pills, or their diabetes pills, or their cholesterol pills........?
That could apply to anything.
In the primary care setting, I've never encountered a single patient whose sole pathology that was being treated was "depression". Generally, it's the last thing on the list.
You seem simply to have a grudge against the notion of "depression". I don't know why. For one thing (to correct another mistake), the standard of care for treating depression is considered to be therapy and medications. You've already refuted your position with "lifestyle change" when you quoted the Mayo article (without reading it). Of course the goal is to get people active. Guess what? While diet and exercise will arguably make people feel better, there is no doubt that it is superior to medication when it comes to heart problems and diabetes.
Physicians tell people to get out and exercise at every office visit. Pragmatically though, everyone knows it falls on deaf ears and Drs. can't make people exercise.
So it becomes even more problematic with your point, because no Dr. can say: "The evidence based medicine shows that the best treatment for depression is diet and exercise".
Just because you really feel something to be true in your heart doesn't make it medically true.