It's a unified effort. The airlines are also complicit.
I had occasion to use the new American Airlines terminal at JFK in New York earlier this year. (I don't know how new it is -- a couple of years or so, I guess. I try to stay as far away from NYC as possible.) I was astonished to note that there are NO restaurants -- not even fast food types -- on the public side of the security screening interface. Not upstairs at the departure level, nor downstairs on the arrivals level.
Yes, there are food sources in the concourse, once you pass through security. But that totally ignores how many families use airports. My late wife used to travel to her native country at least once a year. These days, thanks primarily to IST (Institutionalized Security Theater) they want passengers to arrive at the airport two hours before domestic flights and three hours before international flights. Our routine was to arrive 3 hours ahead, get her checked in, and then we'd find a restaurant and sit down to have supper together before her flight.
That wouldn't be possible at the American terminal at JFK. Which I think is very uncivilized. It means families arriving to drop off one or some of the family members can't share that last pre-flight meal together. To me it fits perfectly in the WWTT* Department.
* What Were They Thinking?