PhronesisWe apply the Displacement Framework to obesity and metabolic disease, formalizing obesity as displacement from S0_metabolic (healthy body composition, normal insulin sensitivity, regulated appetite signaling) rather than a willpower failure. Eight formal propositions are derived: obesity as displacement from S0_metabolic, adipose accumulation as Phi_metabolic (the physical path integral of caloric surplus — the body as written record of accumulated displacement), set-point raising as wrong attractor deepening (chronic overconsumption raises the hypothalamic weight set point, causing the body to defend the displaced state), the ultra-processed food wrong attractor (UPF engineered to maximize reward-satiety dissociation — just enough dopaminergic satisfaction to maintain displaced state without enabling genuine S0_satiety return), leptin resistance as satiety signal disruption (obesity induces leptin resistance making S0_satiety unreachable by leptin signaling — the body cannot detect its own displacement), diet failure as individual return against unchanged landscape (the person exits the wrong attractor through willpower but the environment remains unchanged and pulls them back — landscape must change, not just individual), GLP-1 agonists (semaglutide/Ozempic) as pharmacological S0 restoration (landscape restructuring not symptom suppression), and weight stigma as compounding displacement (social stigma adds D(xi_social) to D(xi_metabolic) via cortisol pathway and stress eating).
Structural interventions (sugar taxes, UPF restrictions, food environment redesign) are analyzed as landscape-level return path engineering. 57 citations including Hall, Speakman, Lustig, Nestle, Monteiro, Willett, Friedman, Schwartz, and Puhl.