I’m in the Washington Examiner today arguing against taking calorie labeling laws national:
Among the many proposals under heated debate between the House and Senate health care bills is one provision both sides will likely support: a national law mandating calorie labels on chain restaurant menus and in vending machines.
Advocates have described the measure as a symbolically important step against obesity and have spun recent research in their favor, but a closer look reveals a weak case for labeling.
Read the whole thing here.
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The first phase of California’s new law mandating the disclosure of nutritional information at chain restaurants went into effect yesterday. This is supposed to give consumers the information they need to make healthy eating decisions, but I think these two juxtaposed quotes in a Mercury News article on the subject capture the real forces behind this legislation:
Betty McGuire, who said she was buying a bag of fast food at Jack’s to give to a homeless person — she doesn’t touch the stuff — didn’t see a problem with the exemption for high-toned restaurants. “I would think the clientele is very different,” McGuire said, “much higher-end. They probably know what they’re eating.” She was not similarly confident about teenagers, whom she hoped “might think twice” now that they’ll have access to elaborate calorie charts.
Mechanic Victor Grijalva seemed relieved to learn that Jack in the Box will keep this information on its counter in a brochure, until he asks for it — which he has no plans to do. [JG: That part of the law goes into effect in 2011.] “I thought it was going to be posted,” he said. “If it was posted on the wall, it would definitely make a difference.” During breaks from working in the Midas garage, he often wolfs down the heart-stopping Bacon Ultimate burger, and would prefer not to be reminded that it accounts for nearly half his daily calorie needs.
The unstated prejudice underlying mandated calorie counts is that only the rich and educated can eat calorie-dense food responsibly; it’s the kind of people who eat at Jack in the Box who need to be nagged and shamed for their indulgence.
If the Senate has its way we’ll soon be nagged at every chain restaurant throughout the country. I wrote against these mandates here and here.
Previously:
Counting calories at Per Se
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Like my friend Chad, I was too busy last week to weigh in on the debate over the ban on new fast food restaurants in South L.A. William Saletan of Slate does a good job taking on the idea that this is just another kind of zoning and that we libertarians should stop getting our collective undies in a knot over it:
When an old practice ventures into new territory, you can always choose to look at it as the same old thing. But in this case, the novelty of the application is what’s interesting. Most cities have long zoned liquor stores, and some have zoned chain restaurants for reasons other than health, such as tackiness. What’s new in L.A. is the zoning of fast food as a health threat akin to liquor. Health zoning has crossed the line from booze and cigarettes to food. This goes way beyond tackiness. In principle, it justifies banning the targeted restaurants not just here or there but everywhere…
This comparison has played a central role in the campaign for the moratorium. And it’s a crucial comparison, because it justifies and, to some extent, obscures a huge step: telling food merchants that they may not open any new outlets in certain neighborhoods because their kind of food is inherently unhealthy…
So if you’re going to start prohibiting certain kinds of food outlets, fast food is a logical food to target, southern L.A. is a logical place to do it (though I still think segregated food zoning as a solution to “food apartheid” is twisted), and one year is a logical introductory period. That’s what makes the L.A. ordinance worth debating: It presents the most tempting case for crossing the line to restrict food like cigarettes or whiskey. But you still have to decide whether to cross that line—and where you’ll stop once you do.
Read the whole thing here. I would add one other difference between traditional zoning and what the L.A. council is doing. As a default, we should leave the decision over what kinds of businesses open in a neighborhood to the interplay of entrepreneurs and customers. Legitimate zoning steps in to shore up externalities. So, for example, it’s understandable that we might want to restrict late night bars from opening if the noise they produce would adversely impact nearby residents. Or some businesses might be restricted because of their impact on traffic. More dubiously, neighborhoods might forbid chains because they have no community character. In all of these cases it’s the broader, external effects of the businesses that are being addressed. With the fast food ban, in contrast, the L.A. council is forbidding businesses to open for the good of the customers who would patronize them. That’s a major line to cross, and one that libertarians are justified in opposing.
(Yes, one could argue that the public health costs of obesity are a relevant externality. But that’s not a problem local to L.A., not addressed by this narrow ban, and a slippery slope I’d prefer not to go down.)
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In a working paper, economists Michael Anderson and David Matsa search for a correlation between easy road access to fast food restaurants and obesity. They don’t find one. The reason, they suggest, is that consumers are smart enough to offset unhealthy restaurant meals by eating less at other times during the day:
Matsa and Anderson next looked at data on individual eating habits from a survey conducted between 1994 and 1996. When eating out, people reported consuming about 35 percent more calories on average than when they ate at home. But importantly, respondents reduced their caloric intake at home on days they ate out (that’s not to say that people were watching their weight, since respondents who reported consuming more at home also tended to eat more when going out). Overall, eating out increased daily caloric intake by only 24 calories. The results for urban and suburban consumers were similar.
The paper casts doubt on the idea that mandating calorie counts in restaurants will effectively reduce obesity, since consumers already appear to be compensating for the dense intake. Our abundance of affordable food, sedentary lifestyles, and consumer preferences are likely greater contributors to unhealthy weights than simple ignorance about the nutritional value of our food.
[Full paper here [pdf]. Via Marginal Revolution.]
Previously:
Calorie counts are lies, all lies!
Guess what? Burgers make you fat!
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Jacob Grier is a freelance writer, barista, mixologist, and magician in Portland, OR. He writes, eats, and drinks a lot. His articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Reason Online, The Oregonian, and other publications.
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