Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 3:31:09 PM
In the news is this report on a study that claims that certain California neighborhoods are “designed for disease” because of the ratio of fast food retailers to grocers. This is absurd, of course. Letting market forces work decentralizes control, thereby avoiding such social engineering. “Design” is what governments try with strict zoning, subsidies, and requiring developers who want to turn their property into something useful to include certain elements. Someone who opens up a burger franchise is usually responding to local demand. They are not designing anything but their own little business.
Californians face an added challenge as they battle expanding waistlines and obesity-related diseases – their address. A landmark study released today shows the state’s first direct correlation between where you live and your risk for obesity or diabetes.
Okay, but it is a stretch to make the leap that fast food business are the cause.
Generally, the closer to the ocean you get, the less obesity, particularly in females. Also, there is less obesity in females in other affluent areas – not because of any design to keep fast food away, but because the men these women pair up with, being wealthy, have a lot of women to choose from. They generally choose women who are not obese. The people living in these areas can afford personal trainers. Most of them are too busy being productive, which is how they got wealthy in the first place, instead of sitting around watching TV.
The groundbreaking study,
Oh yes, they are all groundbreaking, aren’t they? Especially in the publicity copy. I’m sure we also need to fund more research along these lines, too.
Designed for Disease: the Link Between Local Food Environments and Obesity and Diabetes, examines the correlation between the health of nearly 40,000 Californians and the mix of retail food outlets near their homes.
Did you ever stop to thing that maybe the fast food joints go where they are wanted? Which came first – the demand or the supply? Most fast food places even offer some healthy menu items. This is the market at work. Grocers are less likely to go where there is too much red tape, where local “community leaders” make outrageous demands on them, and where crime is going to result in losses or higher insurance or difficulty in attracting customers and employees. And if people would rather eat fast food, why should the grocers even try?
The key finding: people living in neighborhoods crowded with fast-food and convenience stores but relatively few grocery or produce outlets are at significantly higher risk of suffering from obesity and diabetes.
So what?
“Whether we realize it or not, we are affected by the food choices around us,” said Dr. Harold Goldstein of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA), one of the study’s authors.
Some people mindlessly let life wash over them, yes. Other people exercise willpower.
“Maybe it’s time to consider adding the fast-food joints and convenience stores around every corner to the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of known environmental toxins. This study suggests that they may quite literally be making us sick.”
Oh for crying out loud. They aren’t putting a gun to your head and shoving that Big Mac down your throat. It's already silly enough that we have signs on all of our parking garages warning us of carcinogens. I can just picture the signs that these people would require for the doors of these fast food joints. Hey, how about an extra tax on fast food? I'm sure that one is next.
California is home to 14,826 fast-food restaurants and 6,659 convenience stores. By contrast, the state has 3,853 grocery stores and 1,292 produce stands (including farmers’ markets).
This is the result of our mostly free market. What are you going to do, restrict even further what kind of businesses can open where? Force people to build and run grocery stores? Open government grocery stores? Force honest small business owners (fast food franchisees) to shut down?
This disproportionate access to less nutritious foods is, according to the study’s authors, especially alarming in light of the growing obesity and diabetes epidemics, which cost California $6 billion and $18 billion per year, respectively.
Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter. Socialized medical insurance and care. Obesity is expensive to “California” so something must be done about it. What about all of the evidence that certain “sex” acts are harmful by spreading disease and causing injuries? Can we at least prevent those from being portrayed in the public schools as okay? At least that won’t be using force to change personal behavior.
“Clearly the obesity crisis in California can no longer be seen only as a fight over personal choices,” insists Dr. Victor Rubin of PolicyLink.
Oh, no, of course not. This is too important to let people choose their own diet.
“Public policies drive the universe of food options from which we can choose. Families who live in communities with choices limited to high-calorie foods and beverages face substantially greater health risks. Policy makers at the state and local level can save lives by giving Californians healthier food options.”
Policy makers can “give” healthier food options? No. People already have those options, and it wasn’t policy makers that did it. Farmers, factory workers, truckers, investors, lenders, business managers, and workers have provided the options. All of them have the freedom to do so because of our military defending our Constitution.
Here’s an example of local news coverage, focusing on San Bernardino county, which is between Los Angeles county and the eastern border of California - so it is inland, far away the coast. Robert Rogers of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reports.
There are no organic food markets or even chain grocers within two miles of this neighborhood. There is a Mexican grocer a few blocks north, but many in this predominately black neighborhood admit they are reluctant to patronize it.
But they still have the option of doing so.
San Bernardino scored the worst of the state's 24 most populous counties in the Retail Food Environment Index , having nearly six times more fast food and convenience stores as grocers and produce vendors. The ratio is much higher in some minority and low-income county enclaves, researchers noted, where transportation limitations and scant local grocery outlets make eating healthy an even greater challenge.
Let’s ban the fast food places and starve the people. How about that? That would sure beat freedom, wouldn't it?