Fat Chance

Learned something stupid on NPR today and I couldn’t wait to blog about it. It seems that the lovely city of Los Angeles noticed that they have the highest concentration of obese people in south LA as well as the highest concentration of fast food establishments in south LA. Realizing immediately the crisis this posed to their fair city where everyone must be California thin, they acted with dispatch and put a moratorium (ban) on constructing any new fast food places in that area.

1) That would be the government telling you that you can’t do something with your land which, IMHO is a “taking.” Further, it is discriminatory taking that violates principles of free trade since it isn’t against all restaurants, just those which are “fast food.” (Leave aside that the issue of determining which places are fast food and which are not is entirely subjective and that almost all fast food places offer a salad and all sit down places offer something high calorie and fattening.) This is like saying you can put in a Target store but not a Wal-Mart. This measure is illegal.

2) Some major assumptions about cause and effect seem to be in play here. The City Council assumes, or at least their remedy assumes, that the proliferation of “fast food” is what causes the obesity (and that obesity is bad and that they are obligated to clean it up). But what if the fast food has come to be where it is because that is where the obese people are? What if there is something in the life habits of the obese people that makes fast food more appetizing? If that’s the case, the proliferation of fast food is only a symptom and not a cause. Banning it simply means the obese people will have to travel further for it, and this in a city that already battles smog and pollution. Further, the ban hurts the economy and may cause a slight slow down in local construction.

3) The Council is apparently looking for a way to encourage non-fast food restaurants to move into the city and hopes that this moratorium will both give them time to think of a better way to fix the “problem” as well as allow non-fast food places to get established. The restaurant association points out that many people who patronize fast food do so because it is, theoretically, fast. This dovetails with the previous point, but if that is the case then there is no reason to think that by stopping the development of new fast food places, you will somehow get people to go to “slow food” places if they don’t have time. Maybe the reason that no sit-down places really existed in the area is because they can’t survive there. If that is the case, this measure only stops the development of vacant lots that would otherwise become something.

4) I think we also need to ask ourselves where this road is going. Here in Illinois we banned smoking in all public places and within 15 feet of the door to such a place. Of course it’s for our own good and we should trust in the legislature to know best what that is; after all we ordinary citizens aren’t really smart enough to do so. Now L.A. is passing laws to deal with obesity, for its citizen’s own good, etc. What’s next? Will we legislatively impose the food pyramid upon the population for its own good. Make it a misdemeanor to eat more than one candy bar in a week? Will we say you can’t eat a Big Mac in a public building? Maybe all food should be prepared by government chef’s using approved recipes constructed by expert nutritionists and served in city cafeterias?

Nope, not a fan of this. I think I’ll have Big Mac for lunch out of protest.