Fast Food Banned for the Poor
They’re really doing this in California. I am stunned…what do you think of this?
Food Apartheid
Banning fast food in poor neighborhoods.
A few other cities and towns have zoned restaurants for economic, environmental, or aesthetic reasons. But L.A. appears to be the first to do it for health reasons. Last year, a public-interest law group at Johns Hopkins outlined the rationale: “Given the significance of the obesity epidemic in the United States and the scientific evidence and legal basis supporting the zoning of fast food outlets, municipalities have an effective, yet untried, tool to address obesity in their communities.”
I assumed this idea would go nowhere because we Americans don’t like government restrictions on what we eat. You can nag us. You can regulate what our kids eat in school. But you’ll get our burgers when you pry them from our cold, dead hands.
How did the L.A. City Council get around this resistance? By spinning the moratorium as a way to create more food choices, not fewer. And by depicting poor people, like children, as less capable of free choice.
