Ban the Burger! (Should there be a limit on fast food places?)

Member Name: skittle

Product:	Should there be a limit on fast food places?
Date:	11/11/07 (101 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I find it hard to see any

Disadvantages: Far too many to mention them all

The title of this topic quite honestly leaves me asking more questions instead of trying to answer it, if you see what I mean. My first thought when I wondered if there should be a limit on fast food places was what would you hope to achieve by setting a limit? Presumably the answer is a lowering of the obesity rate, but in all honesty if people really want junk food they’ll just cook it at home if they can’t get it from a take away, so I have to question if limiting the number of fast food outlets would even scratch the surface of the problem. Even if, for whatever reason, a person couldn’t get fast food at home – say they live with parents who control their diet – a limit on fast food outlets would not stop somebody who really wanted to eat fast food, they’d just queue for longer, or go further afield to find it.

Quite frankly, I believe that addiction to junk food needs to be tackled on a much more intelligent level than simply limiting the availability of it. For a perfect example, think about Jamie Oliver’s school dinners programme. When junk food was removed from the menu at schools and replaced with healthy, filling foods some of the children simply went without food altogether whilst others had grown ups bring in unhealthy food for them and pass it through the railings at lunch time. Where the parallel falls down is that these were children who were, supposedly, under the control of adults and even then, severely limiting their access to fast food didn’t stop every one of them from obtaining and eating it. In the real world, adults who really want to eat fast food will get it and eat it, and limiting their access to it will not prevent that.

Also, limiting fast food intake is not as straight forward as just cutting off the supply so people have to eat more healthily. Eating in itself is an extremely complex issue, as any dieter will tell you. It’s not like drinking alcohol, taking drugs, smoking or any other addiction you care to name, because you have to eat to live. You can’t just abstain like you can (and should) when trying to quit other addictions. Can you imagine how hard it would be for an alcoholic if they were told they had to cut down their alcohol intake, but to stay alive they’d need to drink half a can of warm, flat special brew three times a day? It’s the same for somebody with an addiction to unhealthy food, and it’s not an issue that can be solved that quickly or easily.

But this is a bigger issue than even obesity, if you’ll pardon the pun. If the number of fast food outlets was limited, how would this limit be enforced? Would it even be enforceable? Also, as there are already lots of fast food places across this country at the moment, would some of these be closed down to meet the new lower limits? If that was the case, what would all of those redundant people do for work? I’m not just talking about the people who ask if you ‘want fries with that’, but the fisherman who bring in the fish and the farmers who grow the potatoes for your local chippy. The haulage company who cart kebab meat all over the country. The guys who supply trays, paper, plastic cutlery. The landlords of all these buildings that’d now be standing empty. The printers who used to print all of the menus. It just goes on and on and on, the knock on effects of limiting the number of fast food outlets in this Country are too huge to fully appreciate.

Of course, I’m also making the mistake of looking at ‘fast food’ but actually only seeing ‘junk food’ too. If junk food outlets were to be closed down and replaced by outlets selling fast, but healthy, food would that be a better solution? If instead of popping into McDonalds or Burger King for a lard burger with fries, you could pop into a takeaway where you could pick and choose food that’s ready as quickly as a burger but without all of those calories. I’m thinking about Subway, who have some really healthy options on their menu, but the food is ready quickly (even if at a pretty high price).

I used to visit a salad bar in London when I worked in Farringdon and they had a choice of loads of different salads and hot, filling, healthy meals for you to help yourself too. I seem to remember that you just picked up a plastic lunch container, then could choose three salads to fill it with for one price, or a greater variety for another price. I went there practically every day, and would now if there was a similar place close to me, but there isn’t. So perhaps not limiting the number of fast food places out there, but changing the unhealthier ones for healthier options would be a better solution. Perhaps even a Government initiative offering grants and concessions to outlets only offering healthy fast food would be a better idea in the long run, therefore adding to personal choice, rather than limiting it.

This has actually been quite a short opinion for me, but in all honesty I think this discussion question, whilst an interesting idea, is a bit of a non-starter. It’s just not feasible in the real world.

Summary: Unfortunately I can't see it working