Cabinet investigates law to curb proliferation of fast food chains | Cooking & Eating

In recent years, the number of fast food chains has increased rapidly. Councilors from the four major cities already called for instruments to curb the boom last year. State Secretary Van Ooijen is now responding to this. He will map out the legal options for a hard brake on the establishment of chains and fast food and soft drink sales and advertising in and around schools.

,,Something really needs to be done, one in seven children is now overweight and things are going in the wrong direction. In lower social classes it is even one in three,” Van Ooijen told this newspaper.

Earlier, the cabinet decided to steer eating behavior more with the plan for a sugar tax, but that is not enough, Van Ooijen fears. “You really don’t want that excess of supply. Eating a hamburger or a döner sandwich is no problem. But I don’t want those huge numbers, nor do I want to school at or too close.” The legal form in which the fast food brake can be introduced is therefore being examined. But action is needed, says the State Secretary.

Such curbing of free enterprise is politically sensitive; nothing has been agreed about this in the coalition agreement. But according to Van Ooijen, a fast food law fits in with the plan to achieve ‘the health goals’: overweight simply has to be reduced, the parties have agreed together.

“Of course you can continue to eat fries. But I want that to be a deliberate choice, not controlled because on every street corner there is a billboard advertising that unhealthy food, and on every street corner there is that temptation with another shop that sells unhealthy food. That directs your behaviour, unnoticed.” A flat ‘fat tax’ would not work, it takes more than just a price incentive.

Details, for example about maximum numbers of fast food restaurants per district or city, have not yet been worked out. Van Ooijen: ,,I don’t want to impose any dictates, like: only zero soft drinks can be sold. I do want to offer legal options to schools to limit or completely exclude soft drinks and unhealthy food such as sweets and snacks. Now they can’t. And of course you get definition discussions: when is something fast food? And: McDonald’s also sells salads. But I don’t want to let that stop me now.”

Van Ooijen will present the options to the House of Representatives this year. “Municipalities say: help us. Schools too. Recently we visited a school that really set a healthy example. But once a few steps from the gate, advertisers stood with big signs: pizza slice for a few euros. Then try to control yourself. We have to help with that.”