The Top 10 Everything of 2008

2. Nanny-state food regulations

After months of legal disputes, New York City in May began enforcing a law aimed at curbing obesity by requiring certain restaurants to post the calorie content of each menu item. It was a transparently snobby law: only chain outlets were affected. Philadelphia followed suit in November. But the Los Angeles City Council went several steps further in the war on fat. It banned any new fast-food restaurant from opening in certain L.A. neighborhoods for a full year. The council apparently felt that residents of those neighborhoods — residents who are disproportionately African-American and Latino — cannot decide for themselves what to consume.

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