Last Updated: 2002-11-21 13:03:29 -0400 (Reuters Health)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp., trying to kill a controversial lawsuit blaming it for youth obesity, says people know that gobbling up too many Big Macs and fries will make them fat.

During the first court hearing in the highly publicized case, a lawyer for the fast-food chain urged a federal judge Wednesday to dismiss the suit because restaurants are not legally required to tell consumers what they already know.

Although other suits have been filed over the issue, lawyers said this is the only one that is actively being litigated.

US District Judge Robert Sweet said he would decide later whether to dismiss the suit.

"The plaintiffs' lawsuit asks the court to abandon common knowledge, common sense," said Bradley Lerman, a lawyer representing McDonald's.

He said that the law does not require that restaurants warn customers of the "universally understood" fact that common foods contain fat, salt, sugar, cholesterol and other basic ingredients. Lerman said that reasonable people know what products are in hamburgers and fries and what excessive eating of those products does to one's waistline over a prolonged period.

"People don't wake up one day thin then wake up the next day and are obese," he said.

The suit, argued Lerman, does not allege that McDonald's products are defective or contaminated but instead tries to hold the company responsible for telling people something that is commonly understood. He said that McDonald's has never billed their Big Macs or fried foods as being as low in calories as a "spinach salad."

http://www.reutershealth.com/archiv...121elin034.html

I'm not sure just how far this will go. I really can not say McDonald's is at fault here because they do list nutrition value on their web page for the whole world to see.

Seriously it's not like they are trying to hide the nutritional value. I have yet to see any "sit-down" restraurant have nutritional value for food on their menu. Some may list calories but not the entire content break down.

Most of the fast food vendors have their food items listed on a web page somewhere. I can't say that of regular restraurants.

I feel sad for those that have gone to such lengths to sue the company for their lack of willpower or convience. I mean these people didn't have to go there every day. They very well could have packed their own breakfast/lunch/dinner.

I can't fault fast food joints for making me gain weight. Perhaps I can sue the grocery store for having so much junkfood and convience foods for me to buy?

I agree with you Agonycat. McDonalds may offer the food but humans have free will. We can choose what not to eat. I know some people will argue that's all they can afford ( I used to). Even on my meager income I now manage to eat low carb due in part to the fact that I save money because I don't go to fast food places anymore.

Katie

I know what I am doing when I eat what I eat :-) Even before they posted numbers, I knew that eating home cooked nutritious food was not only better for me.. but in the end.. doesn't it taste better to??
:-)
We have gotten so used to blaming others..
We just lose site of the fact we are the ones that choose.
Poofie!

Here's the Newsday article on the subject ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Motion to Dismiss McDonald's Suit: Lawyer says child obesity claim is frivolous

By Patricia Hurtado, STAFF WRITER

November 21, 2002

A lawyer for McDonald's charged that a federal class-action lawsuit attempting to hold the fast-food giant liable for the obesity of children should be dismissed, arguing that under the theory, you could even sue mom for cooking fattening foods.

U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said he would reserve decision on a motion made by McDonald's to dismiss the suit as frivolous. "They are seeking to hold McDonald's and McDonald's alone accountable for the growing problem of youthful obesity," said Brad Lerman, a lawyer for the restaurant chain.

Lerman said McDonald's does not mislead the public about the healthfulness of its food, or, "that eating a hamburger is the same as eating a spinach salad." And, he said the long-term effects of eating fatty, high-sodium foods are well-known.

"The understanding and comprehension of what hamburgers and French fries do has been with us for a long, long time," Lerman argued. "People don't go to sleep thin and wake up the next day suddenly obese. They realize it when their clothes are too tight and their pants don't fit."

But Samuel Hirsh, a lawyer for several city children who said they became obese from eating at McDonald's - including a 15-year-old Bronx boy who said he has been eating almost daily at the chain since he was six - disagreed.

"McDonald's has the information that ... a child consuming this food more than one time a week may result in a child developing juvenile diabetes," Hirsh said. "It's become an insipid, toxic kind of thing ... Nobody thinks that going into McDonald's can be unhealthy because they promote their foods as healthy."

The teen, Gregory Rhymes, who likes to "Supersize" his orders, said he weighs 400 pounds and is 5 feet, 6 inches tall and has been diagnosed with diabetes.

Hirsh noted that an advertisement for McDonald's in France advises parents to permit their children to eat there only once a week.

"The plaintiff's theory of liability, if valid, would provide a basis for suing ... pizza parlors, neighborhood diners, bakeries, grocery stores and literally anyone else in the food business (including mothers cooking at home)," McDonald's lawyers argued in their motion to dismiss.

Hirsch said this case has two named plaintiffs but represents at least eight others.

Ashley Pelman, 14, of the Bronx, submitted an affidavit saying she weighs 170 pounds at 4 feet, 10 inches and has been eating at the chain three to four times a week since she was five.

Another named plaintiff, Jazlyn Bradley, 19, of Brooklyn, said she weighs 270 pounds and is 5 feet 6 inches tall, and that during a four-year-period she ate twice a day at McDonald's.

The parents of these children say they never saw posters in the restaurant explaining the nutritional content of the food.

"Common sense tells you this lawsuit makes no sense," said Walt Riker, a McDonald's spokesman."It is baseless and lacks merit."

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/...2869nov21.story

Let's all hope that this lawsuit is dropped or loses. If it wins it sets a precedent for restaurants to be responsible for serving us "healthy" foods. You know, "healthy" foods like bagels, potatoes, rice, bread, cereal.

If this lawsuit wins, isn't there a greater chance that we'll see fewer menu choices of "unhealthy" foods like steak, chicken with the skin, pork chops, real cheese?

IF this is really being made on the behalf of children. WHERE are the parents??
Don't they have a clue what their children are eating?? Haven't they guided them??
Its still inappriopriate to blame Mc Donald's.
Poofie

Ellen Goodman's column in today's paper supports the lawsuit against McDonald's. I don't know how to copy the column into this posting, but perhaps someone else can.

I usually agree with Goodman's columns, I think she is quite insightful, but I can't go along with her argument this time. Yes, McDonald's does directly market unhealthy foods to kids, but lots of other companies also directly market unhealthy/objectionable things to kids. What about all the ads for sugared breakfast cereals on commercial TV? What about the ads for Game Boys and other video games that will just rot their minds? We have a capitalistic economy and there is lots of marketing excess going on. Much of that marketing is directed at kids and teenagers. Why should McDonald's be singled out?

I have raised two kids to adolescence and neither eats at McDonald's (or any other fast food restaurant) in part because I never took them there as toddlers or children. When they occasionally went with friends, they came home talking about how strange it was and how bad the food was. They never watched commercial TV either, so they never saw ads for sugared breakfast cereals. Parents need to share some responsibility in protecting their kids from unhealthy marketing influences. Sueing McDonalds is absurd. (Unfortunately, I did expose them to much too much pizza and pasta as toddlers/children and they are both addicted to that. However, I can only blame myself (and the USDA food pyramid), not some big corporation.)

Anyway, I managed to get plenty fat without ever eating at McDonalds or any other fast food restaurant! Despite Goodman's argument, I still think the lawsuit is absurd.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/3...Big_Macs+.shtml

A weighty case against Big Macs


By Ellen Goodman, 12/12/2002

DON'T BELIEVE there's any magical mathematical equation between the speed of the food and the circumference of the waistline. After all, you can gain weight eating slow food as well as fast food. You can bulk up with haute cuisine as well as Big Macs. And you can, alas, trust me on this.


So I was inclined to scoff at the conspiracy theory of obesity. This is the idea that McDonald's dunnit, that Burger King and Wendy's and their speed-eating cohorts are responsible for the Incredible Expanding American.

Right before Thanksgiving, some lawyers went to court in pursuit of this theory. They filed a class-action suit against McDonald's on behalf of New York children with health problems. These plaintiffs ate at Ronald McDonald's more than at mom's. One 13-year-old weighed 278 pounds, while a 15-year-old weighed in at 400.

I would have called the case frivolous, except my dictionary defines frivolous lawsuits as ''of little or no weight.'' Nevertheless, the story was enough to make me want to cross lawyers off my dinner party list. Who wants to be sued for serving cheesecake?

Now I'm not so sure. I think the lawyers have made their point, if not their case.

Consider the toy in my hand. It comes with the Happy Meal at my neighborhood McDonald's. The yellow rattle has a safety warning on the plastic wrapper. But the nutritional information for this beginner meal - 20 fat grams and 36 sugar grams - is nowhere to be seen. It is stashed under the counter and printed in agate that's off the eye chart.

Then there is the Mighty Kids meal, sold with a collection of Disney ''Treasure Island'' toys. This newer, bigger, presumably ''happier'' meal for little kids totals around 1,160 calories. The Burger King version, dubbed the ''Big Kids Meal,'' is marketed with a question for the 4-and-over eater: ''Do you want to be a Big Kid?'' It cheerfully supplies answers: ''You Should.'' Indeed, eat this often enough and you will.

A few facts? On any given day, one-quarter of Americans eat at a fast food restaurant. In any given month, 90 percent of American children between the ages of 3 and 9 eat at a McDonald's.

They're not forcing hamburgers down open gullets. But if people have their share of personal responsibility for what they eat, is it really frivolous to expect some responsibility on the part of corporations for what and how they market? If parents are supposed to protect their little kids' health, is it really OK for big food to market and advertise in and around and over the heads of parents?

In a motion to dismiss the case, the lawyers for McDonald's wrote, ''Every responsible person understands what is in products such as hamburgers and fries.'' They sound more than vaguely like all those tobacco moguls who righteously announced that ''everyone knows'' that smoking is dangerous while they sent Joe Camel out on a recruiting mission.

Of course, food and tobacco are not the same, though some of the same lawyers who fought big tobacco have turned their sights to a big fat target. As Dick Daynard, head of Northeastern University's Tobacco Products Liability Project, says: ''Nobody needs to smoke cigarettes unless they're hooked, but everyone needs food. And there's no such thing as second-hand eating.''

But a deep, dark secret of the fast food industry is that it makes most of its money from the people targeted as, ahem, ''heavy users.'' Like the tobacco companies, says Daynard, ''food companies have very sophisticated motivational people on their payroll to figure out how to get kids to use their product.''

That's fine if there aren't any health problems associated with the product. But if fast food is good for you, how come Mickey D's took out an ad in France telling parents that kids shouldn't eat ''les hamburgers'' more than once a week?

I don't like to talk about the obesity epidemic; fat isn't exactly contagious. But today 61 percent of adults and 14 percent of adolescents from 12 to 19 are overweight, an increase of 300 percent over three decades.

That's not just a Big Mac mistake. Blame it on a sedentary lifestyle. Blame it on portion (out of) control, from candy bars on steroids to the bagels that ate New York. Blame it on schools selling soda pop in the hallway. If we are what we do and what we eat, we're potatoes: couched and fried.

I don't think the best lawyers in town can prove that the fast food industry fattened its customers. But they may prove it fooled its customers. Especially the young ones. Mark my words and label your lunch. This is just the beginning of a big, fat food fight.

But I still hate it that we have to blame anyone but ourselves for decisions we make.
anyone with any common sense whatsoever KNOWS what a fast food place gets you.
Parents are still in charge of the household and can say NO!
SHOULD say no!
I KNEW.. my parents knew.. to say we didn't is inexcusable for ANYONE!
Poofie!

I think that the portion control is the biggest problem....but not just with fast foods! Sit an watch the ads on TV sometime. It's not just the fast food places that advertise that can get larger portions. Applebee's, Joe's Crab Shack, Chili's...and more....they all promote that their portions are bigger for your money....inticing people to come to their place and overeat.

As for the soda, etc in the schools....that I have a problem with! Especially in the elementary and Jr high levels! Come on, lets face it....you put 100 little kids in a room and offer them their favorite juice, water or almost any soda and most are going to pick the soda..even if it's not their favorite! We're sweet eaters....and it starts right in the cradle. Seems they've cut back or stopped, but when my kids were little (now 18 & 20) I was shocked to find what they added to baby and toddler foods! Extra sugar, starch to thicken, preservatives.....after seeing the labels I tried to make a good portion of their foods at home. (it's not tough, but very time consuming).

I've done web searches on several popular restaurants that advertise locally....looking for nutritional values....and they're not available. MacDonald's has had theirs available for years! You can search for the web....or you can ask at the counter and you'll get the nutritional value of their food. You have to make an effort, but you can get the info! The Burger King near me has a nutritional chart mounted on the wall right where the wait line is! I've asked for nutritional charts at Appleby's and Chili's and they do not have them available! (What's more...the "popular" restaraunts also offer alcoholic beverages...and "virgin" drinks for the kids! But that's another subject.)

People have to start taking responsibility for their own actions! If you feed your kid McDonald's, etc 3-5 times a week they're not only going to get fat, but they're not getting the nutrients they need....and they're going to grow up and continue to eat these foods!

My kids did grow up with TV and their comercials. And they did occasionally have fast foods. But I didn't let them have it whenever they wanted! There were limits....that's what parents are for! All too often it's easier to give in and give them what they want....be it fast foods, or soda, or TV! As a parent it is our job to put limits on things. And it's also our job to explain the good and bad about what's being advertised. "Don't believe everything you see or hear on TV" was a favorite line of my dad when I was growing up....and believe me my kids heard it hundreds of times from me too!

I personally am sick of people blaming others for their problems! I'm fat, I made myself this way. No one made me eat what I ate. No one forced a second helping of potatoes or milky way down my throat! I ate what I ate because I wanted to. It's my fault, and it's my responsibility.

And it time that people realised that their actions have consequences and they have to start taking reposnibility for their own actions!