[stalfie]

I would argue that your argument is simplistic and does not account for observed geographical variations.

Japan does not have an obesity epidemic. The US has an extreme obesity epidemic. There does not seem to be any good genetical explanation, there might be cultural based behavioral explanations, but Japanese communities in the US are also more obese than ones in Japan (although less obese than the general US population).

So it is clearly entirely possible for a society to have plenty of easily accessible delicious food, with no major government restrictions in place, and not have an obesity crisis. And there seems to be some particularly bad environmental and/or cultural factor in the US driving the abnormally bad obesity epidemic there, and no intervention before GLP-1 has managed to reverse the trend (not that there have been many). There are a lot of theories about this topic, but no clear scientific consensus beyond "all very sweet things are probably maybe bad".

PS: I am aware that Japans "fat-tax" exists and is technically a form governement restriction, but I would assume that it plays a relatively minor role overall.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I’m not sure cross-cultural comparisons are useful here. One big difference is that friends and family will aggressively police your weight and the amount you eat, with the ideal set far below health standards for normal weight. It’s not clear how you could operationalize that into an intervention, even if you wanted to.

[ndjeosibfb]

they’re starting to get fatter in japan too

i think it’s due to the increasing prevalence of dairy