I don't disagree but I think the larger point here is Government is painfully ineffective at meddling. So much so that they end up making the problem they were trying to prevent worse.

I mean, this was a pretty obvious work around for McDonalds. If the SF City Council was serious about this they should have seen it coming from a mile away.

Could it be that MacDo just called the SF city council's bluff? I'm not sure this is evidence that the city council sucks at intervening: the council did something straightforward to communicate their intent. The company brazenly thumbed its nose, so they must believe the council to be utterly weak-willed or powerless.

If the city council is not bluffing, they'll push for more restrictive laws. And in another time and place, perhaps health, safety, and zoning commissions would come knocking.

Hopefully an equally (it not more) stupid follow up by the city council would be shot down when coming to a vote. Perhaps McDonald's is banking that lightning won't strike twice?

Have you seen the rising obesity statistics? If the government doesn't take it on as a public health issue, who will?

http://www.wikinvest.com/images/3/37/Obesity.jpg

I am dumfounded that beliefs such as these have such a strong and widespread hold these days.

This is a puritanical mindset. A mindset of the evil of sin and the necessity of combating sin through the coercive power of the collective. It is no less dangerous than puritanical religion ever has been (witch-hunts and all). This belief system escapes notice as a puritanical, regressive ideology because it does not come bundled in the familiar forms: married to a social conservative longing for the past or embedded within the larger structure of a religious belief system replete with supernatural pantheons and creation myths. But in the end it works out to the same thing: the institutionalization of morality. And as always it will end with the same results: repression, subjugation, abuse of power, and misery.

If you decide that individuals do not have the liberty to decide their own diets and take care of their own personal health then where do you draw the line?

Obesity is a private health issue. It is not communicable and poses no danger to anyone except the people who freely choose to eat too much.

The only reason obesity becomes a public issue at all is because the non-obese are forced by the government to pay for the health care of the obese. This problem has a very simple solution - no medicare/medicaid for fatties, and make it easier for insurance to charge fatties and fitness freaks different rates.

It's not communicable from person to person, but it's certainly communicable from your environment to you.

edit: Is this such a controversial statement? Does it bear explanation?

What we eat is not solely a matter of willpower. It is influenced by what sort of food is available. It is influenced by what sort of food is easier or harder to obtain. It is influenced by how hungry we are. How hungry we are can be changed by how stressed out we are, or by what we ate yesterday, or last week, or how active we have been lately. It is even influenced by what we see others eat, what is culturally acceptable to eat.

So yeah - obesity isn't communicable from person to person like the flu is, but it is something that your environment has a huge influence on.

Somehow a person eating food can't control themselves but your desire to change their behavior is objective? Your preference for bad legislation that was transmitted to you contagiously from your environment. Perhaps you would like someone to change your environment so you take better political actions. And so on.

In medicine, communicable == infectious. Obesity is not infectious.

You are correct that people's choices depend on what options they have available and their utility function. Some people will eat pie if it is available, and some people prefer (pie, obesity) to (no pie, healthy weight).

How does hindering their choices help anyone?

And yet somehow obesity was hardly a problem for thousands of years in human history. People need to stop making excuses for their poor eating and exercising habits and take responsibility for their actions.

I think it's awfully naive to claim that the environment you're raised in has no effect on your actions later in life.

According to several studies, obesity is in fact "socially contagious" -- or at least, correlated: if a friend of yours becomes obese, you are now 57% more likely to as well.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1646997,00.ht...

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/food/diet-nutrition/2010-11...

Facebook, Farmville, and other viral apps are "socially contagious" as well. Someone call the CDC!

You make the common but fundamental mistake that fat and fit are mutually exclusive. There are plenty of fit fatties and vice-versa.

As an amateur bodybuilder and fitness enthusiast I'm well aware of the so-called obesity epidemic. There are plenty of ways the government can help, mostly by eliminating special interests.

1. Eliminate all farming subsidies, starting with those for corn and other unhealthy foods.

2. Eliminate special interest group influence on politics, such as the frozen food industry getting congress to declare pizza a vegetable.

3. Provide proper health science education in schools, starting at a young age. Teach kids what food is, how it works, the side effects of poor eating habits, etc. Teach them about nutrients, exercise, etc. Do it in a scientific manor without demonization / judgement, unlike most (stupid) anti-drug programs.

4. Remove all unhealthy foods from food assistance programs.

Most methods of helpful government "intervention" are eliminating government intervention.

I'm with you on (1) and (2). Problem I have with (3) and (4) is that nutritional "science" has been wrong so many times in the past, e.g. a study finds that something (say, french fries cooked in lard) is bad for you, so an entire industry changes to use what they think is better (vegetable oil) and then we discover that not only is the new thing worse (trans fats) but the original thing wasn't that bad in the first place.

Regarding (3) and (4), do you believe it likely that nutritional science is wrong in their broad strokes, e.g. that a diet comprised of cheetos and bacon is good for you, while a diet comprised of green vegetables, rice and legumes is bad for you?

Nutritional science occasionally gets small details wrong, lard fries vs trans fat fries. They are spot on for most things, e.g. spinach vs fries.