Nope, McDonald's Isn't Making Us Fat
Don't blame fast-food restaurants for why America seems so supersized. This new economic study from Northwestern University and UC Berkeley seems to disprove the the common nutritional myth:
The results find no evidence of a causal link between restaurants and obesity, and the estimates are precise enough to rule out any meaningful effect. Analysis of food intake micro data suggests that although consumers eat larger meals at restaurants than at home (even after accounting for selection), they offset these calories at other times of day. We conclude that public health policies targeting restaurants are unlikely to reduce obesity but could negatively affect consumer welfare.
Although restaurants conveniently deliver calories at a low marginal cost, they are only one source among many. While taxing restaurant meals might cause obese consumers to change where they eat, our results suggest that a tax would be unlikely to affect their underlying tendency to overeat. The same principle would apply to other targeted obesity interventions as well. For example, two recent large-scale, multi-state randomized trials of school-based programs that improved the nutritional content of cafeteria meals found no effect on student weight (Nader et al. 1999; Caballero et al. 2003). One principal investigator noted, in retrospect, that the intervention could not control what the children ate outside of school (Kolata 2006). Future research and policy proposals may find greater success if they are designed to account for the optimizing behavior of the targeted subjects.
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Reader Comments
Nothing to See Here, Move Along
First, MikeT, did you even read the article...obviously not!
Second, add this to the long list of banned studies because it does not parrot what the government and/or ideological thugs want to be true.
I for one am praying for the day when the MikeTs and governments of the world recognized the futility of controlling other people's behavior, and start minding their own business.
Um..."no evidence of a causal link between restaurants and obesity" is NOT the equivalent of "no evidence of a causal link between McDonald's and obesity".
Fast Food Nation is not a criticism of restaurants in general. Rather, it points out the hazards of eating the sort of greasy, high-fat, nutritionally compromised fare that characterizes most of the menu items at McDonald's. It's a response to the claims by McDonald's to the contrary.
You can extol the virtues of "personal responsibility" all you want, and I agree to the extent that adults should make their own decisions, even when it's to their detriment. Don't tax restaurants. But the argument is more nuanced than that. If fast food has addictive qualities, which I think Fast Food Nation makes a decent argument for, then what do you say to the fact that millions of advertising dollars are aimed directly at hooking kids on their product as young as possible?
Anyway, taxing "restaurants" is a terrible solution to an ill-defined problem. Crack down on misleading advertising, especially when aimed at kids, and make nutritional information easily accessible to customers. And government should stop being beholden to industry lobbyists. Obesity has health implications and cost implications for the medical system. Launch public awareness campaigns which unabashedly differentiate between healthy and unhealthy food products, provide incentives for people to eat fresh fruit and vegetables. So much could be done to improve the health of the nation if the will was there.
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