a 5.2% increase in student obesity if schools were within 530ft. of fast food

A research project done by the prestigious universities Berkeley and Columbia in America has shown a clear link between the easy availability of unhealthy fast food and higher rates of obesity. The researchers examined data from over 1 million children over eight years in California and saw that if a school was in close proximity to one of the well known fast food chains such as McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell or Pizza Hut the obesity rates were significantly higher at that school.

In fact they saw that teenagers who went to school within a tenth of a mile from fast food outlets were more overweight than those students who attended schools further away. They quantified the problem by stating that there was a 5.2% increase in student obesity if schools were within 530ft. of a fast food outlet.

This research is likely to cause anti obesity campaigners to sit up and demand that more is done to make sure that students don’t have easy access to fast food. It is always a problem to try and regulate what people eat in a free society, however parents and health campaigners argue that it is unfair to tempt children with cheap and unhealthy food every day on their doorsteps and therefore the fast food restaurants should not be allowed to be within close proximity to schools.

In view of the fact that children develop their eating habits when they are young and are unlikely to change them throughout their lives it would seem sensible to prevent the easy access of fast food near educational establishments. If the American government is serious about tackling the nation’s chronic weight problem they should get on with it and do it.

On the other hand there are those who would argue that in a free country you cannot legislate where people can place simple things like restaurants. There have also been calls in recent years for a “fat tax” to be placed on fast food because it is contributing to so many health problems which ultimately have to be borne by the state.

In the same way that smokers pay a lot of tax on their cigarettes maybe it is time that a Big Mac is also subjected to an extra charge to discourage people from eating too many of them and also to contribute to the health burden that fast food puts on the nation.