City council of LA bans new fast-food restaurants in poor neighborhoods with high obesity rates, encourages healthier eateries

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The Los Angeles City Council has approved a law that bans fast-food restaurants from opening in South LA. People who live in this area have the largest obesity problems. Approximately one in 3 children from South LA is obese, compared to one in five in the rest of the city. Nearly one-third of residents in the city's south are obese, compared with 19% for the overall Los Angeles area and 14% in the wealthier west side area.

The main thing responsible for this condition is poverty, as well as the fact that 73 percent of the restaurants in the southern part of the city are fast-food ones and offer meals that are high in calories and cholesterol. "There's one set of food for one part of the city, another set of food for another part of the city, and it's very stratified that way," Marqueece Harris-Dawson, a community leader in south Los Angeles, told the Washington Post this month.

The new law will ban the opening of any fast-food restaurants for a year, but there is the possibility that this period will be increased to two years. According to the new law, “any establishment which dispenses food for consumption on or off the premises, and which has the following characteristics: a limited menu, items prepared in advance or prepared or heated quickly, no table orders and food served in disposable wrapping or containers" is considered to be a fast-food restaurant.

As expected, the new law was received with criticism by fast-food companies, who argued that many of them offer healthy food too, and that it is the consumer's decision to buy junk food. According to them, banning fast-food restaurants is an unfair decision. However, studies have shown that increasing the number of places where people can buy healthy food in a certain area reduces or at least stabilizes the number of people that suffer from obesity in that area as well.

Fast-food chains such as McDonalds have become ubiquitous in America's poor urban areas thanks in large part to their inexpensive meals, raising questions in Los Angeles about whether the new ban would hit low-income residents in the pocketbook. But the city carved out an exemption for lower-priced chains that make their food fresh to order without using a drive-through window, such as Subway. The new law that was approved by the LA City Council also encourages groceries and restaurants that offer healthy food to open for business in South LA.

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Photos courtesy of EontarioNow, AP Photo / Nick Ut, and vivirlatino.com

Original Source: eFluxMedia and Guardian, UK