How to Slow Down Fast Food in Your Own Back Yard

While it’s true that things in Washington are pretty hope­less, many viable pol­icy options exists at the local level and this report offers case stud­ies and tips for suc­cess, plus a whole lot of inspiration.

For exam­ple, St. Paul Public Schools (Minnesota’s sec­ond largest school dis­trict with 64 schools) formed a well­ness com­mit­tee and got a strong pol­icy passed that (among other pro­vi­sions) pro­hibits mar­ket­ing of brands pro­mot­ing low-nutrition foods and bev­er­ages. Advocates brought in researchers from the nearby uni­ver­sity, who helped make the con­nec­tion between food and aca­d­e­mic achieve­ment. The pol­icy has been so suc­cess­ful that a nearby hos­pi­tal has expressed inter­est in fol­low­ing the school district’s lead. That’s how good local pol­icy ideas can spread.

The guide’s sec­tion on zon­ing restric­tions pro­vides sev­eral exam­ples of local poli­cies that have been enacted across the coun­try. For exam­ple, restric­tions on chain restau­rants (either out­right bans or lim­its on the num­ber per­mis­si­ble) exist in sev­eral California cities, as well as cities in Massachusetts and Maine. An ordi­nance dat­ing back to 1978 in Detroit pro­hibits fast food out­lets within 500 feet of schools, thus reduc­ing children’s expo­sure to harm­ful mar­ket­ing messages.

In my own neigh­bor­hood in Oakland, California in 2004, I was part of a suc­cess­ful effort to keep McDonald’s from mov­ing in directly across the street from my beloved Grand Lake farm­ers mar­ket. It just took a few ded­i­cated lead­ers to orga­nize to stop the fast food mon­ster, along with sup­port­ive pol­i­cy­mak­ers. I spoke to an over­flow crowd at the local church and was never more proud of my com­mu­nity. (I also wor­ried about what other neigh­bor­hood that fran­chisee prob­a­bly went to instead.)

In another inspir­ing suc­cess story, in 2008, the city of Los Angeles placed a one-year mora­to­rium on new fast food out­lets in south and east L.A, two par­tic­u­larly poor areas with a high den­sity of fast food. Steps that helped get the job done included sur­veys and other data gath­er­ing, find­ing a cham­pion in the city coun­cil, speak­ing out at coun­cil meet­ings, and of course, a ton of orga­niz­ing and coali­tion build­ing. This was the first time a gov­ern­ment placed a mora­to­rium on fast food for health rea­sons. Last year, the city coun­cil extended the mora­to­rium indefinitely.

Another suc­cess story I wrote about in 2010, when San Francisco enacted a law to place nutri­tion stan­dards on kids’ meals that include a toy incen­tive. Of course, the fast food indus­try, espe­cially McDonald’s, fought the effort vocif­er­ously. But a broad coali­tion of Bay Area groups, work­ing in coor­di­na­tion with Corporate Accountability International, was able to over­come the lob­by­ing onslaught through true grass­roots mobilization.

The spe­cific tac­tics that the fast food indus­try deployed in this fight are instruc­tive and included:

1) Stakeholder sta­tus. McDonald’s attempted to insert itself into the policy-making process, propos­ing changes to the bill that would have gut­ted it;

2) Scare tac­tics. Once they real­ized that wouldn’t work, McDonald’s and friends shifted to threat­en­ing the city with legal action, regard­less of how base­less their claims were;

3) Distractions with PR. McDonald’s hired a PR firm, which (among other tac­tics) tried to con­vince ordi­nance author Supervisor Eric Mar that vol­un­tary stan­dards would work.

Despite the hard-won vic­tory, as I wrote about last December, McDonald’s cyn­i­cally found a way around com­ply­ing with the law. However, much was gained in the process, includ­ing bring­ing greater aware­ness to the issue. Also, soon after the bill’s pas­sage, Jack in the Box pulled toys from its kids’ meals.

Another promis­ing local approach is end­ing pub­lic sub­si­dies such as tax incen­tives and zon­ing breaks. Some cities offer small busi­ness sub­si­dies to fast food fran­chises, which seems rather ironic for multi­na­tional cor­po­ra­tions like Subway and KFC. As Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has noted, “There is no defen­si­ble pol­icy ratio­nale for sub­si­diz­ing fast food restaurants.”

The guide also lists numer­ous other ideas, includ­ing restric­tions on mar­ket­ing to chil­dren, menu label­ing, tax­a­tion, and counter-marketing strate­gies. The authors con­clude while no one com­mu­nity can do every action, “every­one can do some­thing that will help to cre­ate food envi­ron­ments that will guar­an­tee the health of our chil­dren and our communities.”

Finally, also included is a handy Action Guide, with spe­cific steps for how to get your com­mu­nity engaged such as, assess­ing the polit­i­cal land­scape, fram­ing and mes­sag­ing, and most impor­tantly, build­ing com­mu­nity support.

There has never been a bet­ter time to get active and take a stand against the infil­tra­tion of fast food in your neigh­bor­hood. We cer­tainly can­not wait for pol­i­cy­mak­ers in Washington to pro­tect the peo­ple. Download Slowing Down Fast Food and start mobi­liz­ing your com­mu­nity. I guar­an­tee it will be a chal­leng­ing and reward­ing experience.

Then be sure to tell me how it goes, so I can write about your suc­cess story next.

Michele Simon

Michele is a pub­lic health lawyer who has been research­ing and writ­ing about the food indus­try and food pol­i­tics since 1996. Visit her site at www.EatDrinkPolitics.com/