Michael Cawthorne, director of metabolic research at the Clore Laboratory at Britain’s University of Buckingham, argues that if we act early enough, we may be able to program babies’ metabolisms to provide permanent resistance to excess pounds. He and his colleagues are trying to develop a baby formula with an astonishing property: to turn newborns into those enviable people who can eat what they want without getting fat.

Cawthorne would supplement infants’ formula with leptin during the period in which their metabolisms are being calibrated. He speculates that this kind of treatment “will help people cope better with an abundant food environment.”

What works in rats may not work in people. More troubling are the unknown consequences for the developing brain: leptin may be involved in learning and memory as well as appetite and metabolism, and the effects of a formula like Cawthorne’s might not show up for decades.