Restaurant moratorium would not be effective, says WUSTL nutritionist

To help curb the expanding waistlines of her constituents, south Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry recently proposed a two-year moratorium on new fast food restaurants in her district.

But if enacted in Los Angeles or any other U.S. city, would the plan work?

Don’t count on it, said Connie Diekman, R.D., director of Washington University nutrition and president of the American Dietetic Association.

“It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure it would make much of a difference. People always want to make a change in healthy eating by making mandates or requirements.

“Logically, it seems like that’s the way to do it. But what we really need to be focusing on is changing people’s behaviors, which just isn’t that simple,” Diekman said.

Instead of banning new restaurants, Diekman said community leaders should be looking for other ways to make cities healthier.

“Moratoriums, laws and mandates aren’t the solution to the obesity problem,” she said. “We need to teach people about proper nutrition, encourage more grocery stores to provide healthier food choices in all neighborhoods and find ways to make physical activity accessible.”

In order to become healthier, “people need to establish lifestyle patterns for health.”

To encourage lasting change in an area where fast food restaurants are prevalent, community leaders need to work with restaurant owners to include healthy eating choices. They also need to look for ways to add parks or walking trails so people can more easily incorporate physical activity into their daily lives.

“While the concept of not opening any more restaurants does acknowledge that there is a problem, a better approach would be to talk to the current restaurants about providing more healthy options,” Diekman said.

“The most powerful changes are the ones that involve the community as a whole because everyone has bought into those changes,” she said. “If this proposal at least gets the community talking, then it might be a real positive step in the right direction.”