“Amid worries of an obesity epidemic and its related illnesses, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, Los Angeles officials, among others around the country, are proposing to limit new fast-food restaurants — a tactic that could be called health zoning.” Zoning restrictions on fast-food outlets in towns such as Concord, Mass. and Calistoga, Calif. are typically based on traffic or aesthetic concerns, rather than a determination to second-guess what residents choose to eat. The proposed L.A. restrictions would not be city-wide but would instead be specifically targeted to the city’s poorest sections in and around South Central. Mark Vallianatos, director of something called the Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College (more about it), says “bringing health policy and environmental policy together with land-use planning” is “the wave of the future.” (Tami Abdollah, L.A. Times, Sept. 10)(via FEE).
“Limits proposed on fast-food restaurants”
“Amid worries of an obesity epidemic and its related illnesses, including high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, Los Angeles officials, among others around the country, are proposing to limit new fast-food restaurants — a tactic that could be called health zoning.” Zoning restrictions on fast-food outlets in towns such as Concord, Mass. and Calistoga, […]
9 Comments
Licensed fat, complete with ration cards and black markets; you know it’s coming.
Limiting fast food joints in the poorest areas will also lose jobs in those areas. Once again, Women, minorities hurt worst.
Just what El-Lay needs: a Food Gestapo.
My modest proposal for this new organization’s motto:
“Eat your broccoli and enjoy it. Or else.”
One small problem. Fast food did not cause the obesity epidemic. Fast food preceded it by decades.
Why are the French and the Chinese getting obese too, with low availability of fastfood?
If I say the epidemic began in the 1980’s, what else began in the 1980’s?
Supremacy Claus…
Smoking rates started declining.
Factory Farming, hormones and antibiotic injections.
A long running boom in the global economy.
The beginning of the end for (big, scary capital C) Communism.
The first generation of children to be immunized from the worst of childhood diseases.
The Drug War ramps up, Cocaine becomes the drug of choice.
Disco died. Notice that the climb in obesity rates closely follows the death of disco in each country.
No, no, no. Something far more destructive, far bigger, far more disabling, than all those factors combined.
It’s right in front of your nose, right now. Just look straight ahead, and you have it.
SC,
We give up – please share your infinite wisdom.
Something else that started in the 80’s (well, 1979, I think, officially) – the FOOD PYRAMID. You know, the one where the government officially states (for entirly political reasons, I might add) that your diet should be largely carbohydrates? Obesity and diebetes both shot up starting at almost xactly that time.
L.A. will become Anthony Bourdain paradise. No fast food restaurants only poorly regulated hot dog/taco/chicken on a stick stands like the developing world.
me, me, me … I know …
This computer.
ooops …
How could you not figure that out?
What do I win, Mr. Clause? How bout a super-size #2 ?!