The modern fast food era was born in California, in 1940, when the first McDonald’s opened in San Bernardino. It is perhaps fitting that the beginning of the end may also come in California. Last week, the Los Angeles City Council passed a law barring new fast-food restaurants from opening in South LA. This area is commonly referred to as South Central, made famous by the film Boyz N the Hood, as well as the N.W.A. albumStraight Outta Compton (although Compton is its own municipality, it is often considered to be a part of South Central). The majority of South LA’s residents are poor and non-white (55% Latino, 40% black, give or take).

One councilman explained the bill by saying, “Health and social issues are the overriding issues, in my mind. It’s not too different to how we regulate liquor stores.”

He has a point. Obesity is an epidemic. And like many other epidemics, it affects poor people more than rich people. But is this the right way of fighting obesity?

The city council framed their decision as one that would give residents more food choices. The implication is that supermarkets that sell fresh produce don’t get built in South LA because the fast food companies are buying up all the land. Supposedly, the city council is planning on passing further measures to encourage “better” eateries to set up shop in the area.

I’m no libertarian, but I am skeptical every time the government bans something that they deem unhealthy. Prohibition is an obvious example, but so is smoking. Last night while flipping channels, I stumbled across the movie Demolition Man, which depicts a dystopic future Los Angeles where everything unhealthy is illegal. It may be a cliché, but it’s also autocratic. Why should the government tell me what I can put in my body? As long as I’m not harming others, of course — I believe the government should regulate smoking in public, drunk driving, and the use of addictive substances because these behaviors affect other people.

The argument is that since the government ends up picking up the cost of a lot of health care, any behavior that harms your health is costing the taxpayers money. As a supporter of single-payer health care, I am sympathetic to this argument. But where does it end? Do you ban mountain climbing because that poses a health risk? Besides, playing the how-much-will-this cost-us game can be tricky. Taking care of the elderly can be very expensive. Maybe it would be cheaper to just let them die of lung cancer at 68. Health care shouldn’t come at the cost of fewer liberties.

Poor people don’t eat fast food because they’re dumb, or because they can’t find the nearest supermarket. They eat fast food because they’re poor. And fast food is cheap. The fact is, if they did make it to a supermarket, it’s not likely they’d be spending their money on fresh produce.

Michael Pollan explained the problem this way in his excellent New York Times Magazine piece: An obesity researcher wanted to figure out why obesity affected poor people more than rich people; after all, you’d think that poor people would be eating less because they can afford less. The researcher went to a supermarket with one hypothetical dollar. He “found that a dollar could buy 1,200 calories of cookies or potato chips but only 250 calories of carrots. Looking for something to wash down those chips, he discovered that his dollar bought 875 calories of soda but only 170 calories of orange juice.” In other words, if you’re hungry and you have a limited budget, it’s cheaper to buy unhealthy food.

Pollan goes on to explain that this isn’t some result of a free market. A Twinkie, for example, “is a highly complicated, high-tech piece of manufacture, involving no fewer than 39 ingredients, many themselves elaborately manufactured, as well as the packaging and a hefty marketing budget.” A carrot, on the other hand, is pulled from the ground. Why does a carrot cost more than a Twinkie?

The answer, believe it or not, is United States Agriculture policy, which is geared toward subsidizing corn, soy, rice, wheat, cotton, and sugar.

With the exception of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is the single most destructive US policy — to us and the world. Farmers in Columbia can’t compete with us when it comes to growing sugar, so they grow cocaine. Mexican farmers can’t compete so they immigrate here, often illegally. It harms the environment by giving farmers disincentives to diversify. And it’s also making us fat. Cheap corn is used to feed cows, fry French fries, and make soda (via corn syrup), which combine to form the famous happy meal.

If all this seems like a conspiracy, it’s not. Agriculture policy is set by our government through “farm bills,” the most recent of which passed in May when the House voted to override President Bush’s veto. Why do these horrible and expensive bills keep getting passed? One reason is Iowa. The fact that they are always the first state to vote in the primaries means they have more influence on politicians. Iowa receives more agriculture subsidies than any other state. What do they grow in Iowa? Corn. The other reason is that the farming lobby is a powerful special interest group.

Now, the LA city council can’t do anything about US Agriculture policy. But they should have the sense that this is the wrong way to solve the problem. It’s paternalistic, it sets a bad precedent, and it won’t make people less fat.

–Hillel Aron

Photo by Scott Ableman