L.A. eyes limits on fast-food eateries

LOS ANGELES - As America gets fatter, policy makers are seeking creative approaches to legislating health. They've been entering the school cafeteria - and now they're eyeing your neighborhood.

Amid worries of an obesity epidemic and related illnesses, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease, Los Angeles officials, among others around the country, are proposing to limit new fast-food restaurants - a tactic that could be called health zoning.

The City Council will be asked this fall to consider a moratorium of up to two years on new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles, a part of the city where fast food is at least as much a practicality as a preference.

"The people don't want them, but when they don't have any other options, they may gravitate to what's there," said Councilwoman Jan Perry, who proposed the ordinance in June and whose district includes portions of South Los Angeles that would be affected.

In just one-quarter of a mile near the University of Southern California, there are about 20 fast-food outlets.

"To be honest, it's all we eat," Rey Merlan said one recent lunch hour at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. "Everywhere, it's fast food everywhere."

Merlan said it wasn't likely that a limit on new restaurants would change people's habits, even though he thinks it's a good idea.

A Los Angeles Times analysis of the city's roughly 8,200 restaurants found that South Los Angeles has the highest concentration of fast-food eateries. Per capita, the area has fewer eating establishments of any kind than the west side, downtown, or Hollywood, and about the same as the San Fernando Valley. But a much higher percentage of those are fast-food chains. South Los Angeles also has far fewer grocery stores.

Thirty percent of adults in South Los Angeles are obese, compared with 20.9 percent in Los Angeles County overall, according to a county Department of Public Health study released in April. For children, the obesity rate was 29 percent in South Los Angeles, compared with 23.3 percent in the county.

And the figures are higher than a decade ago. In 1997, the adult rate was 25.3 percent in South Los Angeles and 14.3 percent in the county. The area also has the county's highest diabetes levels, at 11.7 percent, compared with 8.1 percent in the county.

"While limiting fast-food restaurants isn't a solution in itself, it's an important piece of the puzzle," said Mark Vallianatos, director of the Center for Food and Justice at Occidental College.

This is "bringing health policy and environmental policy together with land-use planning," he said. "I think that's smart, and it's the wave of the future."

Fast-food restaurants haven't missed the cue: Diners can choose salads over burgers, yogurts over shakes, and grilled over fried these days. And many food manufacturers have reconfigured their recipes to eliminate trans fats, the most unhealthful unsaturated fats made of partially hydrogenated oils.

Some cities already regulate fast-food restaurants in certain areas, including Berkeley and Arcata, Calif.

Port Jefferson, N.Y.; Concord, Mass.; and Calistoga, Calif., ban fast-food restaurants in certain districts entirely, according to Los Angeles city planner Faisal Roble, who drafted Perry's ordinance.

But those earlier regulations are primarily tied to aesthetics or to the protection of smaller businesses, rather than to health concerns, said David Gay, Los Angeles's principal city planner.

Perry's ordinance - a moratorium intended to give the city time to come up with a long-term plan - would, if passed, affect more than 700,000 residents. About 45 percent of the restaurants in South Los Angeles are fast-food chains or restaurants with minimal seating.

Such concentrations of fast food have helped cultivate a reliance on their price and convenience, said Gwendolyn Flynn, policy director for the Community Health Councils, a Los Angeles health policy advocacy organization.

Catalina Ayala, 23, who grew up in South Los Angeles, lives three blocks from a McDonald's and a slew of other fast-food restaurants, and eats fast food about four times a week.

"By the time I go home, it's already too late to cook food," said Ayala, who works at Los Angeles International Airport.