[bettercaust]

Not difficult to find? Maybe, maybe not. Effective public health solutions for obesity for which there is political will to implement them seem difficult to find to me. At the individual level, if you can manage to cut out ultra-processed food, exercise a few times a week, and get any comorbid medical conditions treated you're probably in the clear. All that is to say, it is relatively easy to identify at least some of the determinants of obesity for solutions.

[somenameforme]

I don't agree there at all. Our society has become so screwed up with unhealthful practices that there's low hanging fruit all over the place. For instance don't offer soft drinks, junk food, "sports drinks", etc. at public schools or allow vending machines for such. Offer water, milk, naturally non-caffeinated teas, and so on. Vending snacks could include things like wasabi peas and other extremely low calorie + high flavor type items.

Another thing is to remove the ability to purchase junk foods and cola with government food assistance. There's an extreme inverse correlation between obesity and income (hah.. imagine people of a couple hundred years ago hearing that) and so steps like this could actually have a tremendously positive overall impact on overall social health and wellbeing. This is even more true when you consider that twinkies and cokes are being bought on strictly limited budgets which means that much less money (and now more) for healthy foods.

[bettercaust]

I thought we were talking about public health interventions. How would "don't offer soft drinks, junk food, etc." be implemented? Are you going to propose a law or regulation that bans offering those things?

There's merit to the government food assistance (SNAP in the US) idea, though if you're trying to ban "junk food" from SNAP you're going to run into definition issues. Banning things like Twinkies and cola from SNAP is one thing, but "junk food" may also include ready-made ultra-processed food depending on your definition, and that may be the only type of food typical SNAP recipients can use (e.g. homeless who do not have access to cooking, people who live in food deserts). There is also a valid concern about micromanaging the food people eat, because SNAP recipients are normal humans and we tend to give normal humans leeway to indulge in a treat every now and then.