Posted on 07/23/2008 10:51:33 AM PDT by InvisibleChurch
Despite its health-crazy reputation, parts of Los Angeles are plagued by obesity rates that rival any city in America. Now, the city may join a growing roster of local governments aiming to put their residents on diets by cracking down on the fast-food industry, says the Wall Street Journal.
The Los Angeles city council is considering legislation that would ban new fast-food restaurants like McDonald's and KFC from opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of the city. The targeted area is already home to some 400 fast-food restaurants, possibly contributing to high obesity rates there -- 30 percent of adults, compared with about 21 percent in the rest of the city.
With the ordinance, Los Angeles is tapping into a tougher attitude toward fast food that is emerging around the country:
In New York City, a law kicked in earlier this year requiring fast-food restaurants to post calorie counts on the main menu right above the counter; San Francisco plans to implement a similar regulation later this year. New York City restaurants have also been banned from using coronary-clogging artificial transfats; both Boston and Baltimore have passed similar bans. California legislators have recently sent a bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that would remove transfats from restaurants and bakeries statewide. When the restaurant industry views local legislation as going too far, the industry hasn't hesitated to sue, says the Wall Street Journal. In New York and San Francisco, it is fighting the new calorie-posting rules partly on the grounds that they are violations of free speech, because they force businesses to articulate government messages.
Source: Sarah McBride, "Exiling the Happy Meal," Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2008.
For text:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121668254978871827.html
For more on Regulatory Issues:
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=38
America - even the poor are fat and have cell phones.
Banning lard from refried beans would probably have a bigger impact. Just sayin’
This was inevitable. These types of regulations will continue to encroach further and further until YOU are told what YOU can and cannot eat in YOUR home.
This is not about health, it’s about government control, it’s always “for our own good” and “government knows best and has to save us from ourselves”.
Last time I ate KFC was after they’d switched to “non transfat”. The flavor was peculiar, and I felt ill afterwards. I never went back. I bumped into the manager at a store and he asked why he never sees me there anymore.
I told him and he insisted I was wrong, the flavor was better than ever. I’m curious how sales are nationwide... up? down? flat?
I now rate KFC at the same level as McDonalds... terrible.
How ‘bout a woman’s right to choose a Happy Meal?
Among the Los Angeles County population ages 12-17 in 2003, Latinos had the highest percentage of overweight or obese youth at 18.4 percent. .... The latest data also showed that 7.0 percent of non-Hispanic black youths, 6.2 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 1.7 percent of Asians/Asian Pacific Islanders were overweight or obese.
Moral of the story? More sushi, less tacos.
just use the report abuse button
You should have told him, “This isn’t the Boneless Varity Bucket I once knew.”
LA isn't "health-crazy". The entertainment industry has numerous examples of substance abusers and those with mental health issues and lead to numerous "wannabes" suffering from anorexia.
"Diet-fad" crazy is about it.
Hmmm... wish I’d thought of it at the time.
Surely not after McD’s sponsored the 2007 GL pride parade in San Francisco. I mean, wow, they even had a local commercial supporting the homosexual agenda. Surely Kalifornia owes these folks a little loyalty.
The last time I went to Valley Fair mall in San Jose, I noticed at the food court that the one food vendor with no line at all was the Salad place. Every other place had long lines.....Hmmmmm....
Giving people free choice to choose what the want to eat contributes to obesity........We need government to tell us what to eat, what type of transportation to use, what kind of housing we need, what kind of medical treatment should be available, how much money we can make, etc, etc, etc,.....
I’m right there with you Dentist.
After they switched oils it tasted different, and if you leave a few pieces in the bottom of the bucket too long you might as well throw it out.
The stuff remains a liquid and doesn’t harden like the old oil when it cools, you end up with a soggy, oily, disgusting mess even my dog lifted his nose to.
I wish to people would let me meet my maker my own way, instead of trying to force me to attempt to live forever for my own good.
I forsee a huge black market opportunity for Deep Fat Fryers.
All this does is say that people are too stupid to know what good for them, so it’s up to the Government to tell us how we should live. This is propaganda to push us into socialism.
you are correct... that place is usually empty... my favorite place there is California Pizza Kitchen... always long lines waiting for a table...
I hope it’s not the original happy meal!
Well sometimes even with the governments help and home cooking, we just can’t control our weight: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2048776/posts
and big screen TV's and satellite or cable.
They taste better when fried in lard.
There's no need to ban them. People just need to eat less of them.
The main problem is simply overeating.
High calorie, sweet foods are also a problem. My parents always limited how many sweets I was allowed to eat. Drinking a lot of soft drinks is also a good way to get too many calories.
However, I don't see them banning soft drinks and deserts from sit down restaurants.
Why? Because these politicians only want to appear to be addressing problems, they don't actually try to solve problems.
They are also pandering to the trial lawyer lobby which wishes to demonize the fast food industry and then make hundreds of millions if not more from class action lawsuits.
If you can convince a jury that it's not the fault of the people that are overeating that they are getting fat, then you have grounds for huge lawsuits that will make trial lawyers unbelievably rich.
If those "parts" of LA feature certain ethnic or racial minorities in higher percentages than other areas, then the authors need to start watching out for the PC police and their teams of attorneys.
Once a Titty-Baby, always a Titty-Baby!
In the new Amerika, a woman can choose to kill an unborn infant, but we can’t choose what we eat. Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense... /s
The whole point is this: power hungry agencies WANT to be able to tell to do ANYTHING they decide that will “HELP” you live “better lives” in their opinion. It’s NOT just limited to food.
The CHANGE Train is coming... I HOPE I am not anywhere on or near those tracks! (I got dibs on the upper bunk at the CHANGE Re-education Center)
hi
If I ran McDonald’s, I would post a sign at entrance.
WARNING: OVEREATING OUR GREAT MEALS MAY CAUSE SOME WEIGHT GAIN..EAT RESPONSIBLY.
Hey, watch it buddy. Some people love the stuff.
I’m not sure owning a cell phone is a sign of wealth these days.
I saw a new Virgin Mobile cell phone in Target yesterday for $12.99.
Another $20 for pre-paid minutes and you are good to go.
I can't imagine the suit was successful, but I never heard.
If eating McDogfood is a crime, then only criminals will eat McDogfood.
Last time I ate KFC was when the chicken was still raw on the inside. I was sick afterwards, too.
The non-trans-fat oil is apparantly intersterified oil, which may be much worse than trans-fat. They can’t go back to using lard, which was just fine for you when not accompanied by massive amounts of french fries and nutrient-deficient white flour.
Well, my comment was less about banning lard in refried beans and more a statement about the obesity rates in Los Angeles.
I just found it a bit humerous the way they parsed this article: they mention that the place is known for the health craze and that “parts of Los Angeles” are morbidly obese.
You’ll see my post below where I point out that the Latino rates of obesity are about 3-times higher than any other childhood group.
Southern California is absolutely known for its health craziness. There are more gyms per square mile in Orange County/San Diego than I’d wager there are anywhere else in the world.
That said, having lived there, there’s one particular group where skinny kids are as rare as hens’ teeth. I was just amused by the way the writer’s obfuscated that fact.
“I’m not sure owning a cell phone is a sign of wealth these days.”
I never said it was. A generation ago, a mobile phone was unattainable by most Americans, and still is by a large part of the world, and yet, our poorest people have them, today.
The point I was making in saying that, unlike other countries, or other ages, 21st century American poor are not starving and destitute. They are fat, and have cell phones. To quote comedian Yakoff Smirnoff, “What a country.” IOW, 21st century America is the best place in the world to be poor in.
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