Concerned about high levels of obesity, the lack of traditional grocery stores and a proliferation of fast food eateries, the Los Angeles City Council approved a moratorium on new fast food restaurants in one of the city's poorest sections last year. It has extended the ban through March. 'We argue that the premises for the ban were questionable,' Roland Sturm and Deborah Cohen write in Tuesday's edition of the online journal Health Affairs. The study was based on InfoUsa business data and a survey of 1,480 Los Angeles County residents. It was funded by the National Institutes of Health, with no financial support from the fast food industry, Sturm said. Contrary to 'conventional wisdom,' the density of fast food chain restaurants per capita is actually less in South Los Angeles than in other neighborhoods, said Sturm, a Rand senior economist. 'If you look at it per 100,000 residents, the area is not overrun with McDonald's,' Sturm said. 'The story about fast food chains does not hold up.' Although the authors noted that obesity takes a 'disproportionate toll on minority populations, especially among African American and Hispanic youth' who live South Los Angeles, limiting the type of restaurants that locate in the area isn't likely to solve the problem. Policy choices such as forcing restaurants to print calorie and nutrition information on their menus and reducing the availability of snack food and sodas probably would be more effective in combating obesity than restricting the areas where fast food establishments can open, Strum said. Marion Nestle, nutrition professor at New York University, was not surprised by the findings. 'What we know already, and this study confirms, is that people living in poor inner-city areas do not have easy access to healthful, affordable food, especially fresh food. Lack of food access is highly correlated with diet-related health conditions,' Nestle said. While she doesn't object to the type of moratorium Los Angeles enacted, Nestle said there were plenty of other things the city could do 'to encourage more healthful food consumption in low-income areas.' She said cities could start with improved nutrition and nutrition education in schools as well as encouraging farmers markets, fruit-and-vegetable carts and community gardens. Patricia Williams, a McDonald's franchise owner with nine restaurants in Southern California, including in South Los Angeles, said, 'There are some neighborhoods in South Los Angeles that would probably benefit from a McDonald's. So the moratorium should be looked at on a case-by-case basis.' Almost 26 percent of the residents of South Los Angeles are considered obese, according to the study. That compares with about 18 percent of the residents of Los Angeles County who live in higher-income neighborhoods. The authors found that far wealthier West Los Angeles has 29 fast food chain establishments, 14 small food stores and 10 large supermarkets per 100,000 residents. South Los Angeles has 19 fast food chain restaurants, 58 small food stores and three large grocery stores. The authors said the data were at odds with 'media reports about an over-concentration of fast food establishments' in South Los Angeles. Among those reports, the study cites a July 30, 2008, chart in the Los Angeles Times that accompanied a story. The chart said fast food establishments represented 45 percent of all restaurants in South Los Angeles. That was a higher percentage than in any other section of the city. Doug Smith, the Times director of computer-assisted reporting who crunched the data, said the different findings arose from the newspaper's including small independent restaurants with seating for 10 or fewer people. The Rand study focused primarily on fast food chains -- leading to a smaller count. City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, whose district includes part of the area where the moratorium is in force, took exception with the Rand report. 'Anybody who in the year 2010 thinks they can compare South Los Angeles to West Los Angeles is going to be faulty. You just can't make comparisons between the two communities,' said Parks, who is a proponent of the ban. He said his district desperately needed more sit-down restaurants, supermarkets and other sellers of fresh food and produce. 'We are the most underserved community in L.A. for everything but fast food. There are a parade of people who have to leave the 8th District to purchase their basic food and household needs,' Parks said. South Los Angeles is often labeled a 'food desert' because of its lack of large traditional grocery stores, the typical source of healthful foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables. However, the new study's authors found no difference in fruit and vegetable consumption among residents of South Los Angeles and people in other areas. Likewise, there was no difference in the proportion of people participating in 300 minutes of exercise or more per week. Residents of both West and South Los Angeles tend to eat out about 3.5 times a week, although South Los Angeles residents are more likely to obtain food from a food cart or truck than to dine in a sit-down restaurant. South Los Angeles residents also were likely to watch more television. The Rand researchers blamed the greater likelihood of South Los Angeles residents to be obese on greater consumption of snacks and sodas. 'Snacks usually don't come from a restaurant,' Sturm said. 'They typically come from stores and vending machines.' 