Following are experts who can discuss plans to ban new fast-food restaurantsfrom opening in a 32-square-mile chunk of Los Angeles. The fast-food ban,which would last a year, taps into a tougher attitude toward fast food that isemerging at city halls around the country:
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1. CONNIE DIEKMAN, R.D., director of university nutrition at WASHINGTONUNIVERSITY in St. Louis and immediate past president of the American DieteticAssociation: "We need to change people's attitudes and behaviors, not justeliminate restaurants. People always want to make a change in healthy eatingby making mandates or requirements. Logically, it seems like that's the way todo it. But what we really need to be focusing on is changing people'sbehaviors, which just isn't that simple. Moratoriums, laws and mandates aren'tthe solution to the obesity problem. We need to teach people about propernutrition, encourage more grocery stores to provide healthier food choices inall neighborhoods and find ways to make physical activity accessible. Whilethe concept of not opening any more restaurants does acknowledge that there isa problem, a better approach would be to talk to the current restaurants aboutproviding more healthy options. The most powerful changes are the ones thatinvolve the community as a whole because everyone has bought into thosechanges." News Contact: Neil Schoenherr, [email protected] Phone: +1-314-935-5235 (7/25/08)
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2. DONALD KOCHAN, associate professor of law at the CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY Schoolof Law: "Zoning and regulation run amok. In a free-market economy, it is notthe government's role to decide what and where certain services or productsshould be provided. It is the height of a paternalistic government to decidethat consumers should be isolated from fast food simply because the governmentofficials think they know what is good for them. Such a ban violatesindividual freedoms but also individual choice and individual responsibility.Pizza is probably bad for you most of the time -- should we allow governmentto create 'no-delivery zones'? This restriction is not only arbitrary andcapricious, offensive to the market, constrictive of individual freedom, ultravires and beyond the legitimate role of the government, but also just furtherevidence of the 'nanny state' out of control. Property rights have been underconstant attack in recent years, and this is just another example of thegovernment invasion." News Contact: Dennis M. O'Connor Jr.,[email protected] Phone: +1-781-530-3700 Web site:http://www.donaldjkochan.com (7/25/08)
3. CHARLES M. CLARK, JR., M.D., professor of medicine at the IndianaUniversity School of Medicine at INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITYINDIANAPOLIS and director of WHO/PAHO Diabetes Collaborating Center forContinuing Health Professional Education: "While a fast-food ban may not doany harm, I doubt that it will have any long-term effect. Mandatingnutritional information and calorie content is more promising. In the longrun, better nutrition and nutritional education in our schools will need to bethe primary effort. We could also mandate that any meal served in a restaurantthat has more than one-third of the daily basic nutritional needs be shared,if asked. People who are calorie-conscious will be asked to split the meal,thereby eating the correct amount of food. That would have the effect ofcutting down the calories offered by the establishments." News Contact: H.Diane Brown, [email protected] Phone: +1-317-274-7711 (7/25/08)
4. DENNIS LOMBARDI, executive vice president of foodservice strategies at WDPARTNERS, a retail and restaurant consulting firm: "You can't regulate thesupply side of a behavioral problem and expect results. This is a well-meaning, but misguided attempt to control social behavior, and it is as doomedto failure as prohibition was in the '20s. It's the consumer on a
