The Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted today to put a ban on new fast food restaurants in South Los Angeles. City Officials are hoping the ban will help slow the rapidly growing obesity rate in this impoverished area of the city. Thirty percent of South L.A. adults are obese compared with 19.1 percent of adults in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and 14.1 percent on the more affluent west side of town. This comes as little surprise when you consider that 73 percent of all restaurants in South L.A. are fast food compared with 42 percent in West Los Angeles. The moratorium will last for one year and is intended to attract other types of restaurants to an area desperately in need of healthier choices. The bill requires the signature of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to become law. The California Restaurant Association is considering a legal challenge to the city ordinance.

I couldn’t agree more with the intent of this measure, which seeks to curb a problem that is plain for the eye to see in virtually any poor area in the United States, a truly unusual society in human history where the poor are somehow fatter than the rich. While obesity rates in impoverished areas have climbed with the rise of a ubiquitous fast food culture a host of other health problems have also skyrocketed, most notably diabetes, which has been reaching epidemic levels in many disadvantaged areas of the United States. However, I don’t know if a bill like this is constitutional, or even all that effective. I would suggest to cities and states across the country to correlate a tax on the fat and sugar content of the servings at restaurants if they truly wanted to make some headway in helping with the devastating problem of obesity.

You can takepart in improving the diet of your community by logging onto the website of the Organic Consumers Association.

LINKS:

The Guardian: Los Angeles city council issues fast food ban for poor neighbourhoods

Reuters: Los Angeles City Council passes fast food ban

Agence France Presse: Los Angeles passes ban on new fast food outlets