LA Banning fast food in the poor communities?

[Smoky73]

Check this out, I almost freakin died.

http://www.slate.com/id/2196397/?GT1=38001
AND, it says NY places are starting to consider this...can you believe it ?
What is this country coming too?

I know a lot of states and cities ban alcohol, (dry towns) in like TX & UT for example, but fast food?
I could never live in a city where they weant to take away my Margaritas AND my fries....

 

[coffeelady3]

My understanding is that they're not banning fast food. They're prohibiting any new fast food joints opening in the area. The city is trying to get some more healthy options in there.

 

[Rosalind]

Have you been to East LA and tried to find something to eat that was healthy and had less than 1000 calories per serving? Or tried to go grocery shopping there?

Basically, there is no healthy food and there are hardly any grocery markets there, no place to buy healthy food, fruits and veggies or fresh meat, even if you wanted to do so. The grocery shops that are there mostly are the mini-mart type that sell bread, milk, Twinkies and bologna. You can't live on Twinkies, so the fast food places move in. There aren't a whole bunch of gyms, hiking trails, or swimming pools in the ghetto, either, and LA is known for being un-walk-able.

Then the residents who are too poor to have health insurance (either through work or self-insured) end up with heart disease, diabetes, etc. and you, the taxpayer, get to pick up the bill for their emergency room visits. You can't force an adult to eat healthy and exercise if they truly don't want to, and for ethical reasons the health profession provides emergency care to anyone who needs it--if someone is unconscious and dying of a heart attack, there's no way to figure out if they earned their heart attack by subsisting on junk food and never exercising, or if the heart attack is a bizarre genetic freak thing, or what. The bill isn't paid anyway, so we know that the cost of future illness is not a deterrent to eating unhealthy.

Basically, the taxpayers got tired of paying for healthcare for preventable diseases, saw that the preventable diseases existed for socioeconomic reasons, and legislated a solution. I've met dietitians who quit the field because they were tired of arguing with parents who fed toddlers on donuts and soda for breakfast, Doritos for lunch, and microwave TV dinners before bed.

I rather hope it doesn't become a trend though; the Northeast and the Left Coast pretty much subsidize social programs throughout the South and Midwest, as we pay in more taxes than we receive in benefits, while in the South and the Midwest it's the opposite--they receive more social and economic program benefits than they put in. There are already massive cultural and political divides there, I can imagine it revving up into a civil war type of situation.

 

[TheKidAndDame]

Quote:
I had first hand experience with this in Baltimore. One of our school assignments was to traverse the blocks around our school downtown and see what kind of dietary options there were for the locals. Well, man can live on fried chicken and twinkies alone if then wan to end up with coronary stents or on dialysis. Honestly, it is sad. Even the local grocery store in the nicer section of downtown that I lived in did not carry much fresh produce. The items they did have were beyond their prime to say the least. Banning new fast food joints is a good first step. Now we have to figure out how to provide healthy food at a comparable cost...

 

[Wolf-Kim]

While I understand "why", I just have trouble believing that they actually did that!

I mean, isn't up to the people to decide whether they want to eat healthy or not? That is like that whole story, where the mother fed her child McDonalds all the time and then sued because her child was obese.

When are people going to take responsibility for themselves?!? It absolutely KILLS me, to think that we are quickly depending more and more on the government to tell us what we can and cannot do! I'm not talking about laws against murder and rape, I'm talking about silly stuff like this. Next the government will be telling us what we "have" to eat in order to stay healthy. I mean, come one, government regulated meals.

It just aggravates me, to think where our country is moving too and the slope we are sliding into.

How long before the government starts telling us how many children we can or cannot have? What color paint we use on our property? What type of cars we can't or can drive? How long before they tell us where we can or can't go because it is "dangerous" or "unhealthy"?

I know, I know, I'm started to rant. It just struck and nerve and got me fired up, that's all. LOL

It seems like the real problem here is not providing healthy foods at a decent cost...

-Kim

 

[suburban farm girl]

Thanks for sharing this article, Cara.

It definitely got some lively conversations going around our breakfast table.

The author is obviously biased toward getting readers to feel outrage. On a certain level I do - I don't like government mandating anything I do.

And yet... I have never been to South Central LA. I've heard enough stories though to know it's not likely to ever be on my list of places to visit - in fact I'd keep a wide berth of it. South Central LA is like a third world country to me - and because of that I can not relate to what it's like for the people who live there. The article doesn't say whether the councilwoman who sponsored the ordinance lives in the neighborhood or not. It does sound like her intentions are good, and that the area is already full of fast food restaurants and that options for buying fresh, wholesome food in their neighborhood are extremely limited. (Sometimes I think it's such a pain to drive to the grocery store - or Costco - and load up on what my family needs for the next few days or a week and then bring it back home to get unloaded from the car. I can't imagine trying to do that kind of shopping by bus (I don't think many people in that neighborhood own cars) - and because nothing is close having to make numerous bus changes to get it done.) I do think it's a shame that the article is focusing on obesity - which does go along with eating a fast food diet - rather than focusing on good nutrition, cultural heritage (food - family recipes and traditions - are a primary source of passing on family heritage), and even being able to take care of yourself because you can at least prepare an egg to eat...

In a perfect world the residents of the neighborhood would have banned together and signed a petition and brought it to the council. They would have raised their own voices and been pro-active and declared what they want. I suspect most people in that neighborhood are working so hard just to scrape by that they wouldn't even consider doing something like that. And I bet there are a lot of parents - who don't have the space or ability to keep chickens or grow a garden - that would be very grateful to have a market in their neighborhood.

 

[Alaskan]

nah...I think the problem is you can't force people to eat healthy.

Like the dietitian that Rosalind mentioned getting fed up with trying to convince people to eat healthy. And they wanted to keep feeding their kids donuts.

HOPEFULLY we aren't going to force people to eat healthy.

If they want to buy healthy than a market will be created. I used to live in a 'meat and potatoes' kind of town. They did have a health food store, but it never got very big, because there wasn't enough demand. (the town was about 100,000 people).

I now live in a town of about maybe 6,000 or 10,000 (if you add up all the people in the surrounding areas who come to shop in my town), and I have BETTER health food access. There just happens to be lots of 'crunchy granola' types here.

If they want to eat junk, I think they are going to eat junk.

If you aren't careful we will have illegal french fries right next to the illegal drugs.

 

[TheKidAndDame]

Quote:
Well, most of the families I interviewed did not want to eat junk. Junk was all that was accessible and/or affordable. There were food pantries where they were able to get some alternatives but that often mean 1hr on a bus with multiple kids. I am not defending anyone's actions but having worked with some of these populations I can understand why these things happen.

 

[speckledhen]

Let's face it. Unhealthy foods are the cheapest foods. I can't afford to buy enough healthy food to fill my stomach. Meats? Forget it! Veggies are even expensive and pretty much unsafe these days, with all the salmonella outbreaks anyway. Simple carb-rich foods are cheaper so when gasoline is over $4/gallon and on a very fixed income, I have to buy cheap foods, unless I can grow them. And I cant afford to pay the electricity to run the well pump to water a garden, so it's a Catch-22. I know how to eat healthy. I just cannot afford to do it these days. For the record, I'd love to go to a decent restaurant for meals, just no $$$ for more than the usual substandard fast food. Ever wonder why so many poor people are fat? Exactly the reason I stated. Pasta is cheap. Rice is cheap.

 

[lady_irish]

As has already been said, you can't force people to eat healthy. Unfortunately as was also stated, there will be no change in eating habits because people are not held responsible for their decisions. With emergency rooms being required to treat someone, it doesn't matter if that person's there because of terribly unhealthy eating habits (no matter the reason for them), the taxpayers will pick up their bill so what does it matter to them? I'm not saying that as all-inclusive, just as a general note. I feel for people who find themselves in less than desirable conditions. My family lived in Maryland near the DC area. Ugh. Talk about rough conditions! And we weren't even IN the city!!! But even outside, in areas where it looked like you might get decent grocery stores, we stopped looking at the offbase stores (we're military) and stuck with the commissary! There was simply not much to be had! And the prices!!!! Don't even get me started.....un