The rise of urban nutrition activism continues with the L.A. moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles, a low-income area underserved by healthier-menu alternatives and decent supermarkets. Advocates argue that in an obesity epidemic, it’s fair game to block businesses that serve up fatty fare. Opponents counter that attempts to stifle free choice in a free market smack of paternalism and even racism. The National Restaurant Association is predictably bothered; it smells a rat in the fryer.
The free choice argument is dubious. Cities have bylaws so that communities can regulate the character of their neighborhoods within the parameters of the law. If they go too far, courts decide. The New York City move to compel chain restaurants to post calories on display menus was challenged—but upheld. Now when you study the menu at the Times Square Cold Stone Creamery, you see that your menu choices weigh in at 100 calories to more than 1,300. (As my daughter noted when I bought her ice cream there last night, most customers do not shy away from the high-flying sundaes.)
If restaurants are banned, the real question becomes what, if anything, will appear in their stead? I’m trying to picture the impact of a similar law in a low-income neighborhood in my city. If you zoned out the White Castles and Kennedy Fried Chickens, would Better Burger move in? No, because it wouldn’t make business sense. Better Burger is a hip Manhattan burger chain with a healthy “mission.” But a chicken burger with air-baked organic fries and a soda costs $9.45 at BB, while the chicken-fries combo at a Manhattan McDonald’s is $6.69.
The fight at the fast-food level, in low-income neighborhoods especially, is about pennies, not nutrition. Healthy food often costs more, and that’s one reason (but not the only reason, it’s a very complicated cultural phenomenon) that obesity correlates to economic status in America. Poor eating is part of being poor.
That doesn’t mean that high-fat communities shouldn’t use the weapons they have. But banning isn’t the same as building. L.A. activist and writer Joe R. Hicks, who opposes the “nanny-state” fast-food ban, points to the arrival of Fresh & Easy as a more interesting way to attack the problem.
Fresh & Easy is a clever attempt by U.K. supermarket giant Tesco to conquer the U.S. market by building midsize stores that sell decent food for less. If you check out the F&E website, you see its mission (”We think fresh, wholesome food should be accessible and affordable to everyone”), and you see that they have stores in the South L.A. region. There’s one in Compton, and last month they broke ground in South L.A., making hay about bringing healthy food to underserved communities.
In the end, promoting the healthy-eating message (in schools too) will probably help more than shooting the fat-bomb messenger. But fast-food joints aren’t on the endangered-species list, and urban nutrition activism seems like a good thing to me.
(PHOTO: CORBIS)
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