According to the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune the Chicago city council is ready to promulgate a ban on the use of trans fatty acids by Windy City restaurants, at least partly in response to a survey in a recent Men's Fitness magazine that named Chicago the fattest city in the nation. There are just a couple of problems with this proposal.
First, as we've explained before, the Men's Fitness survey was less than totally reliable. For example, one of the criteria the magazine used to determine fitness or fatness was the number of health clubs in a city. That's all well and good, but it doesn't matter if there's a health club for every five people in a city if those people don't use them -- and the survey didn't quantify health club use.
Second, even if all trans fats were replaced with other types of oils and fats in restaurant foods, there's no evidence this substitution would make even the slightest dent in anyone's body weight. All widely used fats and oils (butter, olive oil, canola oil, etc.) have the same number of calories: nine per gram. The city council can be forgiven for conflating concerns about trans fats with concerns about obesity -- that happens a lot these days. But the only realistic solution to the obesity problem is educating consumers to make appropriate dietary and lifestyle choices, not enacting draconian measures that will benefit no one.
Ruth Kava, Ph.D., R.D., Director of Nutrition, American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
