There is an interesting discussion going on at the Becker-Posner blog about obesity abatement. Richard Posner talks about the NY ordinance requiring that calorie counts of food be prominently labeled fast food restaurants:
The significance of the New York City ordinance lies in its requiring that calorie numbers be printed next to the food items on menus and menu boards and in large type. The purpose is less to inform than to frighten. Psychologists have shown (what is anyway pretty obvious) that people respond more to information that is presented to them in a dramatic, memorable form than to information that is presented as an abstraction or is merely remembered rather than being pushed in one's face; that is the theory beyond requiring reckless drivers to watch videotapes of accidents and requiring cigarette ads to contain fearsome threats. It is one thing to know that a Big Mac has a lot of calories, and another thing to have the number emblazoned on the menu board, next to a mouth-watering picture. The warnings--for that is what the display of high calorie numbers amounts to--may create fear of high-calorie foods, not only in fast-food chains but generally. If so, and if as a result there is less obesity, there will be a reduction in medical expense and possibly a gain in happiness if, as one suspects, thin people are on average happier than fat people.
No one can know in advance the net effects of the ordinance. Its effect on obesity may be small, and it will impose costs of compliance on the fast-food chains subject to them and as a result cause the price of fast food to rise, though perhaps by a trivial amount--and the increase in price will contribute, albeit modestly, to efforts to reduce obesity. An increase in general education, by tending to reduce people's discount rates, may have a greater effect than the ordinance in checking obesity, because the ill effects of obesity are greater in the long term than in the short term and education tends to reduce discount rates.The argument for the New York City ordinance thus comes down to the argument for social experimentation generally: that it will yield valuable information about the effects of public interventions designed to alter life styles. I therefore favor the ordinance, though without great optimism that it will contribute significantly to a reduction in obesity.
Gary Becker comments that these ordinance will have a negligible good effect and represent deleterious expansion of state power:
Requiring restaurants to post calorie content of foods will have a negligible effect on demand for these foods because, as I argue above, consumers are buying these foods not mainly because they are ignorant of the effects on weight, but because of cheapness, convenience, and taste. Banning fast food restaurants would have an effect by eliminating their convenience. Still, substitutes would develop, such as prepared foods in supermarkets, or fast foods served not in chains but in individually owned restaurants (hostility to food chains is also partly responsible for the growth of legislation against them). Maybe eventually some of these substitutes would be banned too. Such continuing extensions of the power of government are a very unattractive prospect. Given all the ineptitude in government regulation, as reflected for example in the regulation of Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae, and in other housing problems, I believe it is better to tolerate some mistakes by consumers in their choice of foods. Such additional regulation of fast foods will make people worse off in the long run as well as in the short run.
Read the whole thing. Though they have slightly differing opinions, they talk about the core issues.
This is a particularly salient considering the multiplication of bans and labeling warnings that have developed in municipalities around America. NY also banned trans fats, and Los Angeles has jumped into the fray by banning new fast food restaurants in poor areas. I am sure that there are dozens more. The issue really hinges on whether you think that people are psychologically capable of self-denial when fast food is appealing, cheap, and plentiful and to what degree you think the state is responsible for the good eating habits of its citizens (and issue closely linked with whether the state is responsible for their health).
My two cents: I live in NY, and I have seen the trans fat ban and the labeling push in force. The trans fat ban has been in force for a while. Though there was a great deal of grumbling, any increases in prices as a consequence of regulation have been swamped by increased prices as a result of higher energy costs. The labeling has been in effect for a couple months.
I think the trans fat ban was effective in that it succeeded in getting something noticeably bad out of our food. On the other hand, as I wrote before, I remain unconvinced that trans fats would have just as quickly left our food by restaurants voluntarily deciding to advertise the relative health of their choices -- much in the way that Chinese restaurants advertise food without MSG. I have never contested that trans fats are indeed bad for you. What I contest is that government action was necessary in that case, and I, like Becker, am uncomfortable with arbitrary and unnecessary displays of government power.
Whether the labeling push will be effective at making people choose better foods remains to be seen. The law requires the calorie counts to be prominently displayed rather than sequestered to a corner or on the Internet. This may have a wake-up call effect on some customers (though I think you would have had to be living in a cave for 10 years to not realize these foods are bad for you). On the other hand, people have a fantastic ability to deny relevant information when faced with some immediate benefit -- in this case, a food that really tastes good. I suspect that the law will only be effective as long as it takes people to learn to ignore it. What next? Maybe they should make the restaurants burn calorie counts into beef paddies or draw them out with salsa on taco shells.
I haven't seen the LA law myself, but its effects are likely to be slow to develop because it doesn't close restaurants -- just stops new ones. I doubt that it will be effective because of the variety of ways that people can avoid it. One, you could just drive farther. This will add to the cost because of gas, but the additional cost may be mitigated in degrees by allowing you to access cheaper foods. Two, restauranteurs could get very devious in evading the ban (as Becker alludes). You could have non-chain restaurants with equally unhealthy food or non-restaurants providing food additionally. (The food at the average New York bodega is much worse than McDonald's, but it does not appear that such a place would fall under LA's ban.) The LA law may be effective over long time scales in encouraging healthier options to set up shop, but over the short run it will impose a cost and hassle to the citizens of these areas.
Obesity reduction is a desirable outcome, and the evidence suggests that these foods are bad for you. I just think that the cure may be worse than the disease. Not only am I skeptical about the effectiveness of these laws, I resent the rather pernicious intrusion of the government into people's personal choices. To quote John Stuart Mill from On Liberty:
But there is a sphere of action in which society, as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only an indirect interest; comprehending all that portion of a person's life and conduct which affects only himself, or if it also affects others, only with their free, voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; but, being almost of as much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and resting in great part on the same reasons, is practically inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow-creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived.
No society in which these liberties are not, on the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its form of government; and none is completely free in which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest. (Emphasis mine.)
The fact that city governments pass laws like this suggests that assertions of personal liberty have become passe in our society. We are all in this together -- as politicians from both parties regularly remind us -- and this gives us carte blanche to be each other's keepers.
Are there any solutions to the obesity problem that might work and be compliant with personal liberty? A tax of unhealthy foods might be acceptable if it were modest (and the proceeds applied to the health care of individuals affecting by unhealthy eating habits). Pigovian taxes remain in my opinion the best way to correct externalities without abolishing freedoms. You could still have whatever you wanted; you would just have to pay for it. I doubt, however, that such a tax would ever actually be put into practice. There is too much a belief that it would be punitive to fat people, and it would be admittedly a very regressive tax -- at least given present food options. That and energy prices have already inflated the cost of food. This in and of itself may prove to be the most effective way of fighting obesity, much in the same way that it is lowering total US gas consumption.
Anyway, that is just my two cents. The resolution of this issue -- personal freedom vs. the responsibility of the state to fight obesity -- will likely be one of the great culture wars of the next generation. It really gets to the core of what you believe the purpose of government is. The debate will play out in these municipal (and probably eventually state and federal) laws and whether they are shown to be effective.
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Wow, thats a lot of maybes. If we have signs, maybe we can create fear of high calorie food, then maybe people will stop eating it, and then they maybe they won't be fat and then maybe they'll be happy! (maybe!)
Much like smoking, who doesn't know that high calorie food is bad for you?
I don't think the problem is knowing, its caring. I know big macs aren't good for me, but i buy them every once and a while because they taste good. But i don't eat fast food every day.
Even if you put calories (and warnings) on the menus, and tax on the food, people are still going to do it, just like people still smoke, people still drink. Somewhere along the line personal responsibility needs to come back into this discussion. The only responsibility mentioned in the article and your commentary is that of the government and of the corporations. Has personal responsibility disappeared in this day and age?
From time immemorial to the appearance of practical refrigeration, our diets didn't change much. Where we used to have fruit in season, refrigerated railroad cars and reefer ships let us eat fruit all year long, which might not be a good idea. A seasonal intake of fruits might be better for us than an all-year fruit intake. It might be better to get our simple sugars from digesting vegetables and whole grains, and not indulge in fruit daily.
There used to be no sucrose in our diets, except for people who chewed sugarcane. Then when sugar became industrialized, sucrose showed up in everything, includied candied vegetables, all sorts of cakes, pies, cookies, and deserts, with of course sugar frostings.
Today, high fructose corn syrup is the preferred industrial sweetener. Being less sweet than cane sugar, we're unaware of how much we're taking in, and we're getting monosaccharides added to all our processed food (and drink).
I cringed when I saw a nutritionist advising someone going grocery shopping to always read the labels. The lady ended up with a shopping cart full of things in boxes and other containers.
Most of what I eat doesn't have labels. I get it fresh from the farmers market.
It may be industrially manufactured food that is causing worldwide obesity. Note that there is a marked surge in obesity in countries where the populace is undernourished. They aren't getting enough calories, but they are getting fat. Go figure.
Obesity comes from overeating! The type of foods people eat are not as much responsible for obesity as how they eat and how much they eat.
Teaching children and adults how to slow down their eating must be the first step. I have also discovered, that our body gives a distinct signal, when it had enough food. Stopping to eat at that point leads to permanent weight loss. The signal is called SOS.
Check out: The SOS Weight Loss Method for more information.
This is an interesting topic.
On the one hand, I think the government needs to step in to save people who certainly are making uninformed choices. On the other hand, I don't like the arbitrary nature of it.
The real issue seems to be the unfair influence of the meat and dairy industry in confusing us about proper nutrition. Look at the dairy industry's "3 a day" campaign that more calcium is necessary to prevent osteoporosis. I can't think of a reputable scientist who actually believes this! Countries that consume the most calcium have the most osteoporosis. The issue is calcium excretion. And yet, the dairy industry is allowed to educate schools and teachers. I grew up with in the Midwest with Elsie the cow and a school sponsored milk program.
Why are we so concerned with particular nutrients any way? Michael Pollan in "In Defense of Food" does a great job of discussing the history of how such "nutritionism" or scientific reductionism came into play. You could say food is bigger than the sum of its parts since there is much we don't know. We should be telling people to change foods they eat, not change particular components like fat/calories/proteins/etc.
I have never understood why the USDA--an industry based on selling foods--is allowed to tell us what to eat and make food pyramids that reside on our food labels. Doctors that have successfully reversed heart disease don't agree with those guidelines.
The start has to come from the government.
Three things.
1, Research on herbal supplements shows that labels stating possible ill effects don't necessarily affect consumer behavior. I don't think there's even evidence that even the Surgeon General's warnings on cigarettes are effective.
2, People will learn to tune out the labels just as they do online ads.
3, Dick Blume is correct that overeating is the real killer, not eating the wrong foods. (Even without underexercing, overeating alone is enough to cause obesity.)
It is far too simple an answer to say that overeating is the cause of the obesity epidemic. It's also a matter of the kinds of foods that people overeat combined with the lack of exercise. The distinctions are important as follows: corporate paternalism in the form of the widespread marketing of unhealthy foods and promotion of sedentary activities (watching television; playing video games) help create the conditions for obesity. Market failures occur because corporations who manufacture and sell foods that contribute proportionally to obesity are not held accountable for the associated healthcare costs. Would it promote healthy food choices, if the prices of high fat and high glycemic index foods accounted for those costs? Perhaps. Keeping those prices low also would seem to be a form of governmental paternalism, for the benefit of corporations that manufacture and sell unhealthy foods.
Is governmental paternalism a worse thing than governmental neglect? When private enterprise fails to act in the public interest, it seems that government needs to take a larger role. It also seems that Becker/Posner are taking advantage of ham-handed and ineffectual bureaucratic responses as a strawman to beat up on the role of government in general. Labeling, as being done by New York State, is obnoxious and ordinances against fast food restaurants are intrusive. But I wouldn't mind the kind of governmental paternalism argued for by Phillip Longman, who at one time suggested that we be bribed to eat our vegetables and exercise regularly. I also wouldn't mind government promoting this kind of message http://impact_analysis.blogspot.com/2008/04/vegetables-and-sex.html as encouragement for eating properly.
Ah, the laissez faire two step.
One the one hand, it relies on an intelligent consumer base making informed choices to provide a rational for no government intervention in their affairs. On the other hand, an uninformed consumer base making emotional decisions is _so_ much more profitable.
Personally, I'm all for this law. It's one thing to compare a Big Mac to a low-fat salad with dressing. It's a little more complicated to compare, say, a cheeseburger versus one of the "deli sandwiches" on the menu, or a dressed chicken caesar salad.