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It is in fact a good idea, and it would probably generate a lot of insight. But it would be very politically dicey.

>Because the root cause isn't a sudden increase in appetite.

It seems plausible that the introduction of evolutionarily novel ultraprocessed foods, designed by scientists in labs to be as tasty as possible, could increase a lot of people's appetites.

The main cause of the problem is probably the widespread availability of cheap processed food in the US and, increasingly, other rich countries. I would support regulating these foods, but that would be very politically difficult and it would probably take many years for regulations to gain enough traction to make a difference.

We know from behavioral genetics that, for people in the same environment, individual differences in obesity are about 70% heritable. And there's loads of evidence that the standard "diet and exercise" approach does not lead to long-term weight loss in the vast majority of people who attempt it. (It does lead to shorter-term weight loss, but then people regain the weight, for biological reasons.)

So, short of massive regulation of modern "food products", the only options are either bariatric surgery (which does produce long-term weight loss) or some new intervention. The GLP drugs are the most promising candidates in that category.

I agree that there's too much triumphalism about these drugs at the moment. We don't really know yet whether they will produce long-term weight loss without serious side effects.

"It's just one additional requirement; it won't break the bank"....this logic, applied over and over by building construction regulators for the past few decades, is an underappreciated but important contributor to the housing affordability crisis. Everyone talks about zoning, but building codes, etc are a big issue too.

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

Every hour that a Boeing employee spends trying to design or build a good airplane is one less hour that he can spend angling for power within the organization. So the people who care the most about the original purpose of the organization will be systematically outcompeted by the people who care the most about obtaining power within the organization. A widespread and profound problem.

When companies are small, the machinations of political types and their inadequate contributions to the core product are too obvious, and they get weeded out.

But when the company grows large and successful (due to the efforts of the people who cared about the original mission), it has a brand and long-term customers. At that point, the political types can burrow in without any immediately obvious effects, since there are enough other people doing the real work and the company has enough momentum to keep moving for some time.