San Francisco Pushes For More Health Measures

San Francisco, CA (AHN) - Although San Francisco's Department of Public Health is one of the hardest hit by the cuts ordered by City Mayor Gavin Newsom, the city is still bent on improving the health of residents.

Aside from prohibiting the sale of cigarettes in drug stores, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week also mandated chain restaurants to post the calories, fat content and other nutritional information on their menu.

Other health measures on the pipeline include banning smoking inside taxis, ATM lines and common areas in apartment complexes and the closing of some city streets on Sunday to provide extra space for residents to jog, exercise or lay out their yoga mats on the sidewalk.

The eagerness of the city to impose health measures has prompted some residents to sarcastically comment that city hall's next step would be to require them to finish their veggies and run on the treadmill every half an hour, while obese people gorging on sugary food will be ticketed.

Bobby Kiel, a retired real estate broker, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The city's looking shabby. I'd rather have clean sidewalks than not be able to buy a pack of cigarettes in a pharmacy... It's not any of their business. They're not the surgeon general or the Centers for Disease Control."

Software engineer Chris Carillo added, quoted by the Chronicle, "There's crime on the streets, homeless people congregating, a lot of grime. I'd rather see them concentrate on that."

Dr. Robert Lustig, an obesity expert, said menu labeling is not sufficient. The city also has to ensure residents have access to healthy food, without hurting their pockets too much. "It's not just about patient education... Telling people what's in food and not also changing what they have access to is unlikely to change the obesity epidemic," Lustig said.