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Although no suit has been successful to date, the trend has caught the attention of other fast-food chains, including Taco Bell, Wendy's, Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Pizza Hut. Aside from the expense of litigation, purveyors of fast food run the risk that a well-honed theory may play well with a sympathetic jury. An award of any size is likely to open a floodgate of litigation.
Are lawsuits a useful tool to encourage fast-food restaurants to introduce healthful options and curtail marketing to children?
Facing a super-sized legal threat to the industry, the U.S. House of Representatives twice has introduced bills to outlaw fast-food lawsuits. No legislation has yet passed both houses of Congress. Similar measures have been introduced in about 20 states.
DOC News asked:
Could food-related lawsuits help stem the tide of the rising obesity epidemic, or is overweight a matter of personal responsibility?
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Food-related lawsuits will enrich trial lawyers but do nothing to stem the obesity epidemic. Personal responsibility has unfortunately taken a back seat in our litigation-crazed society; nevertheless, personal responsibility is still the key to diet and exercise and other positive health activities.
Thomas Bonekemper, MD, JD Internal Medicine Quakertown, Penn.
I feel it is an individual's responsibility to monitor his or her own eating habits and weight fluctuations. Unless a food establishment pulls you off the road and force-feeds you high-fat/high-calorie food, you cannot blame them. Shame on people for trying to take advantage of others to benefit themselves.
Allison Goldberg, RD Registered Dietitian Congers, N.Y.
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Medical science demonstrates the truth that obesity is eating more calories than activity expends. Fact is, it is a matter of personal responsibility! Until American society accepts responsibility for its actions rather than blaming everyone/everything ("McDonald's made me fat"), change for better health will not occur.
Glenn Uber, DO, MPH Family Medicine Corbin, Ky.
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I don't think having a law that would allow people to sue a fast-food company for the choices that they made would be appropriate. What I would prefer to see would be for the individual to be more responsible.
However, I think when you're dealing with children that there is a responsibility there. They are not little adults. They don't have the background to make healthy choices. So I think there is a corporate responsibility to make sure that nutrition information would be more visible and more publicized, and they might even make recommendations to help children make healthier choices. It'd be nice if we could see nutrition information at point of sale. That would also help parents, because I find that parents don't always have a strong background in nutrition, and they don't understand that children have different nutritional needs than adults. Parents often decide what children should be eating based on what they know about what they as adults should be eating. Anything that fast-food companies can do to help parents make healthy choices for their young children, and provide information for those children as they become older and can read and make their own decisions, would be helpful.
[Consumers] ought to continue to take responsibility, but they need the nutrition information in order to do that. I would hope that there would be a role for dietitians in the consumer affairs area of corporations to provide nutrition information, whether it would be in the restaurant chains or in retail grocery stores.
Evelyn M. Hart, RD, LD Nutrition Specialist Manchester, N.H.
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As a registered dietitian and a type 1 diabetic, I am fed up with the public not taking responsibility for its own health. I do agree with the so-called cheeseburger ban bill. The people spending the time and effort suing McDonald's, Burger King, etc. would have been far better off if they had spent some effort researching what they were putting into their mouths.
Consumers need to request the nutritional information from local fast-food joints or get online to make informed decisions. I would love to see all restaurants labeling their foods. Then at least the information would be staring consumers straight in the face, or should I say the mouth?
The obesity epidemic encompasses far more than just fast food. It includes sedentary habits that start in childhood, the lack of physical/nutrition education in schools, the oversized portions that we expect at restaurants, and a lack of parental nutrition education/control at home. We as health care professionals should be educating the public as much as possible, but ultimately it is the consumer's responsibility to eat healthfully.
Shannon Bailey, MS, RD/LD Diabetes Specialist Bartlesville, Okla.
While the food industry shoulders some responsibility for increasing the portion sizes of many foods, the ultimate responsibility still lies with the consumer. Information on calories, fat, etc. regarding most fast foods has been available for quite a while. Choosing to read that information is the responsibility of the consumer. McDonald's has taken the brunt of blame; however, they were the first to offer some lower-calorie choices and have continued to expand in that area. The obesity epidemic can be related to overeating, but there is also a factor of decreased physical activity that plays a big role in this problem. It will be interesting to see if sales of certain foods decrease at McDonald's after they add that nutrition information to their packaging. I don't believe the sales of Ben and Jerry's ice cream dropped when nutrition labels were put on their products!
Carol Schrader, RD, CDE
Registered Dietician/Certified Diabetes Educator
Wenatchee, Wash.
TALK BACK: FROM ACID FLASHBACK TO ACID REFLUX
As those on the leading edge of the baby boom enter their 60s and begin to contemplate a decade or two of aging into inevitable physical decline, health care payers, planners, and policy wonks are nervously wondering how the strapped health system will cope with the rising tide of illness and disability.
Research suggests that baby boomers are heavier than earlier generations, have lived longer with obesity, and are more likely to suffer the consequences of the condition.1
For all the lip service about the vital role of primary care and prevention, the U.S. health system is still structured in favor of costly specialty care. A January 11, 2006, article in The New York Times documents the upside-down incentives of today's medicine, where insurers often balk at paying $150 for a person with diabetes to see a podiatrist who can assess and treat the complications of peripheral neuropathy but will readily pay $30,000 or more for an amputation.
The Bush administration has tried repeatedly to eliminate funding for Section 747 of Title VII of the Public Health Service Act, which earmarks money for training family physicians for primary care. Although approximately $40 million has been restored, funding is about half what it was 3 years ago.
Medical students, staggering under an average debt of $86,000, are less interested in pursuing primary care. Instead, they are entering specialties that pay better and give physicians more control over their work.2,3
What do you think? What sort of incentives will help primary care keep pace with the growing demands created by diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions?
Send your comments to docnews{at}diabetes.org.
References
2. Newton DA, Grayson MS, Thompson LF: The variable influence of lifestyle and income on medical students' career specialty choices: Data from two U.S. medical schools, 1998–2004. Acad Med 80: 809–814, 2005.[Medline]
3. Rosenblatt RA, Andrilla CH: The impact of U.S. medical students' debt on their choice of primary care careers: An analysis of data from the 2002 medical school graduation questionnaire. Acad Med 80: 815–819, 2005.[Medline]
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