The national discourse about health and obesity has never been a particularly cordial conversation.
In 2008, it hit a tendentious peak when a ban on new fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles brought the term "food apartheid" to the table. The ordinance, which was implemented in a part of the city that is both disproportionately poor and obese, came as a response to the idea that there are two different systems for accessing food in Los Angeles, one with more limited options in an economically depressed part of the city that is predominantly black and Latino, and the other with more variety in more affluent neighborhoods.
The pushback was equally charged. "Opening a McDonald's in South-Central L.A. is not government-enforced racial discrimination," William Saletan argued in 2008. "But telling McDonald's it can open franchises only in the white part of town—what do you call that?"
[For more of this story, written by Adam Chandler, go to http://www.theatlantic.com/hea...-in-south-la/388475/]
Comments (0)