A regulation banning the establishment of new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles is unlikely to curb obesity rates, according to a study by researchers at Santa Monica think tank Rand Corp.
Concerned about high levels of obesity, the lack of traditional grocery stores and a proliferation of fast-food eateries, the Los Angeles City Council approved a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in one of the poorest sections of the city last year. It has extended the ban through March of next year.
"We argue that the premises for the ban were questionable," Roland Sturm and Deborah Cohen write in today's online edition of the journal Health Affairs.
The study was based on InfoUSA business data and a survey of 1,480 Los Angeles County residents. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health, with no financial support from the fast-food industry, Sturm said.
Contrary to "conventional wisdom," the density of fast-food chain restaurants per capita is actually less in South Los Angeles than in other parts of the city, said Sturm, a Rand senior economist.
"If you look at it per 100,000 residents, the area is not overrun with McDonald's," Sturm said. "The story about fast-food chains does not hold up."
Though the authors noted that obesity takes a "disproportionate toll on minority populations, especially among African American and Hispanic youth" who live in South Los Angeles, limiting the type of restaurants that move to the area isn't likely to solve the problem.
Policy choices such as forcing restaurants to print calorie and nutrition information on their menus and reducing the availability of snack food and sodas is likely to be more effective in combating obesity than restricting the areas where fast-food establishments can open, Strum said.
One outside nutrition expert was not surprised by the findings.
"What we know already, and this study confirms, is that people living in poor inner-city areas do not have easy access to healthful, affordable food, especially fresh food. Lack of food access is highly correlated with diet-related health conditions," said Marion Nestle, nutrition professor at New York University.
Though she doesn't object to the type of moratorium Los Angeles enacted, Nestle said there are plenty of other things the city can do "to encourage more healthful food consumption in low-income areas." She said cities could start with improving nutrition and nutrition education in schools as well as encouraging farmers markets, fruit-and-vegetable carts and community gardens.
