Maybe. But I don’t know if the burden of proof would be that high - if he ate in these places as often as he claimed he did there’s probably people who knew about it. In any event, the lawyer is looking for class-action status, as mentioned. This (if granted) would make it more similar to the gun lawsuit.
Again, I don’t admit this. And this it is not so relevent to the legal case, in any event. My point was that the interpretation of laws is heavily influenced by prevailing public opinion - the influence of lobbyists is minimal at best.
emphasis mine
I’m interested to know how McDonalds targets low-income children as opposed to all children. The article didn’t expand on that point. I didn’t know it was possible to air commercials solely to low-income families.
I’m not to sure I see a correlation between the difficulty in spotting obese people in prosperous metropolitan areas versus spotting them in poorer, rural regions and targeting low-income families. I’d say because there are more people in the metropolitan areas so it would be easier to spot obese people in less populated (rural) areas.
That’s how I understand it. Sounds to me like he’s going to have to prove a lot, assuming this actually goes before a judge. I mean, anyone can sue for any reason, right? It’s the following-up part of it that’s tough.
Not compared to: from your list
1 order of Kung Pao Chicken -1620 calories & 76 Grams of Fat
or Prime Rib (16 oz) - 1690 calories & 104 Grams of Fat
My point was why target the fast food industry only, when junk foods include chocolates, lollies, biscuits, cakes, ice creams, potato crisps, sweets and other take-away foods. All these are available in any 7-11 / corner shop / supermarket. Its not about the place you buy the food, it is ALL about the individuals attitude to eating.
I don’t think you should be able sue 'cause your attitude is wrong.
“The take home message is that you can eat what you like 10% of the time if you eat the good stuff 90% of the time”
I, along with my girlfriend, take my niece & nephew maybe once a month to Mickey D’s 'cause they enjoy it (3 & 5 yo’s), and it generally costs about £20 ($31).
I could buy a full weeks groceries for that at Tesco’s, if I was being frugal.
So is a Snickers bar. It’s a good thing we know well enough not to eat them every day. We do know that, don’t we? If we don’t, I guess Mars Inc. is going to be in a lot of trouble soon.
It has been known for some time that fooda rich in red meat, cheeses & deep-fried starches is not a healthy diet. The fact that the plaintiffs did not know this is unfortunate but it is not the fault of the restaurant. You should not hold other parties accountable for what you willingly put into your body.
I’d be interested to know about the specifics of the plaintiff’s lifestyles. Do they have 9-5 desk jobs, then come home and sit on the sofa all night long with a bag of chips & bean dip at their side? I think the sedentariness factor has got to be discovered if the plaintiffs are attempting to lay 100% blame on the defendants.
Not if you compare apples to apples. There is no way my apple at home costs me more than a restaurant apple that has been processed, resold for a profit, processed again, cooked, prepared and then sold again for a profit. Now, if you compare a McD’s filet o’fish-large fries-medium sprite meal to my T-bone steak, baked potato & beer at home, of course my meal at home costs more. But that’s not a fair comparrison, is it?
You want to start dealing in facts for a change? The tobacco litigation began around 1992. The percentage of smokers, adults and children since then is basically unchanged. http://www.ash.org.uk/html/factsheets/html/fact01.html
The “huge amounts of awareness” raised by the tobacco litigation have had no effect on smoking in this country.
But even if it had, so what? The plaintiffs in this fast food lawsuit are not trying to “raise awareness.” They are trying to take money from the fast food companies. Why do they deserve that money? Because they are fat?
Let’s pretend that these idiots had no idea that if they ate fast food five times a week they would gain weight. They can’t pretend that they remained ignorant - they were gaining weight. If you have gained 50 pounds after eating a Big Mac and fries 5 times a week for the past year, at some point you are obliged to make the connection and think “gosh, maybe I should eat something else.” If you do not make the connection, you are not a reasonable person. And the fast food companies, as well as everybody else, only has the obligation to prevent harm to other persons who are acting reasonably.
Finally, I find it offensive that you think the court system should be used for anything other than adjudicating disputes. If you want to “raise awareness,” protest. Write your congressman. Start a petition to ban fast food restaurants. Don’t pervert the legal system to do an end-run around the democratic process. Using the courts to “raise awareness” simply means you are lazy.
Okay, sorry. I was speaking of rates in the US. Here’s a .pdf file which clearly shows that rates of smoking are decresing in Merica, especially for people under the age of 18. Part of this decrease, undoutedly, is a direct result of increased awareness. (
(Personally, I think Canada’s “pictures of cancer-ridden lungs on cigarette boxes” method of raising awareness is much more efficient, and I wish the US would undertake a similar campaign, but that’s decidedly off-topic.)
Not, not because they were fat. Because they are victims. Whether or not courts agree remains to be seen.
Raising awareness will merely be a by-product of the case, but who cares? Every little bit of ignorance fought counts. Wouldn’t you agree?
As for your question of “Why do they deserve that money?” Similar logic prevails when you flip the situation. Fast Food companies aren’t trying to serve good, nutritious food. They’re trying to take people’s money. Especially from parents. Why do they deserve to do this? Because they’re a multi-national corporation? Sure, they have as much right as anyone else to try and make money. Fat people included. If you don’t think fat people should be allowed to make money, as you’re saying, then you’re a bigot and a horrible person.
First, calling them “idiots” is offensive. You don’t even know them. You sound like a very angry person. I’d appreciate you not judging these people, they have it hard enough already without your completely unjustified insults. Seriously, why bring more hatred into the world when it’s much easier just to call them “people” or “the plaintiffs”?
Okay. Take this, and apply it to a few other situations. We’ll quickly see that in the business world, nothing and no one would really fit your definition of “reasonable.”
Is it “reasonable” to burn down rainforests? Or only pay Chinese children 8 cents an hour for? Or build nuclear arsenals? Or paying illiterate athletes millions of dollars?
Lets these poor obese people have their 15 minutes of fame, get some money, and raise some awareness. There are many bigger, more important issues you could focus your anger on.
So, the repubilcans were “lazy” for making a big deal out of MonicaGate? That wasn’t a perversion of the legal system?
So, African-Americans were “lazy” for filing civil rights suits back in the '60s? (Today as well . . .) They should have written a letter to their congressmen, as a sign of protest?
And yes, those McLibel people (who you should know a lot about, since you’re from the UK) are really “lazy,” using the courts like that to raise awareness. The two years of their lives they gave up, in order to raise awareness about something they cared deeply about, should have just taken the form of a letter.
Here are two links for the McLibel case. First is the original pampglet, which sparked the whole controversy. Second is the judge’s verdict, which shows the pamplet is not necessarily “true,” but also that the claims in the pamphlet are also not necessarily “false.”
Comparing civil rights suits to this joke of a lawsuit is insulting. I’d say what the clients really are, what the lawyers really are, and what defenders really are, but the resulting stream of profanities and personal attacks would probably get me booted. Lets just say they have an agenda, and it isn’t in the best interest for freedom.
Let’s see I own a business. I could do one of two things I could tell everyone that my food tastes great and is cheap. Or I could tell everyone that my food is bad for you. Honestly why would a reasonable person spend millions of dollars turning people off to their product? In every McDonalds and Burger King I have been in there has been a nutrition fact sheet on the wall. I could look at that sheet and make logical assumptions about my meal.
It is understood that one of the major targets of McDonalds is children. When I was little it was a treat for my parents to get me a Happy Meal. It was twice as good if they had a play area. One key point to that though was that my parents got it for me. As a young child I couldn’t go to McDonalds on my own. One because I had no money and two because I had no transportation. So ultimately no matter how much advertising I saw it was my parents final decision.
Meat in your diet is not harmful. If schools telling kids that meat is part of a healthy diet is “propaganda” so be it. Maybe you could provide me a link that says that any beef at all is bad for you.
In fact could you please enlighten me. What is the proper food pyramid?
Interesting choice of words. When you accuse McDonalds of advertising to children and yet the vegan movement does the exact same thing. http://www.peta-online.org/kids/index.html
Victims of what. This man went to McDonalds of his own free will. He ate at McDonalds of his own free will. He made his bed now he has to lie in it. I don’t consider anyone that has willfully eaten McDonalds as often as him a victim.
The other poster never said that you deliberately twisted their words in order to make them sound bad.
I’m glad you know vegan is the way to go why don’t you enlighten us and provide some facts.
In fact, whether or not much anyone agrees remains to be seen. Personally, and I mean this without insult, I don’t see that you have even begun to hint at establishing this, and expecting us to believe without proof that people who decided to gorge themselves on fatty foods are victims of the evil fast food industry is asinine.
Me. I care. So does Sua, evidently. The courts are busy enough as it is just doing their jobs; they have no need to spend additional time fighting ignorance. It’s not their job. And in any event… what ignorance precisely is this fighting again?
Oh sweet blistering thunderfuck, this has to be the most nonsensical thing I’ve seen all week! Let’s step through the logic again:
Fast food companies offer a product and advertise said product. People want that product, in part because of the advertising but in principle because they find it convenient (trust me, I could go out and advertise that I was giving free penectomies, but the mere fact that I am doing so does not imply that I’ll do business; there still needs to be a demand for my service). Very simple, very aboveboard.
The reverse situation is this: a person goes out and gorges himself repeatedly on the aforementioned product. Realizing after the fact that this was, in fact, stupid, he decides to make the company pay for his own stupidity. The rest of us are simply saying that if some particular negative consequence is due solely to your own actions, you shouldn’t expect someone else to compensate you for it.
In a similar fashion, companies that sell hammers off a product, advertise said product, and are paid for said product by consumers. People who then take said product and proceed to beat their own brains in should not expect the hammer companies to pay them for it.
This has nothing to do with fat people having no right to earn money, and it certainly has nothing to do with Sua being a bigot, which he isn’t.
And just why do you think this is unjustified? In my own humble opinion, their claims display a great deal of idiocy, both in that they would like us to believe that they didn’t realize that eating fatty foods would fatten them, which requires idiocy, and in that they evidently believe that the solution to their problems is to tie up the court systems with a frivolous lawsuit, which requires at least as much idiocy. And I don’t see it as a great stretch to say that anyone who acts like an idiot is, in fact, an idiot.
(Aside: I find it priceless that you groundlessly imply that Sua might be a bigot and then have the gall to be offended by his calling a third party an idiot on the strength of the evidence. The cognitive dissonance implied herein would destroy a lesser person.)
I suppose that I, too, am an idiot, because I have absolutely no idea where you are going with any of this drivel. Personally, I don’t think it’s reasonable to pay middle relievers $5 million per annum. No one, however, is required to be reasonable. That’s the great thing about this entire “free country” thing that you may possibly have heard of. In any event, while I am not required to act reasonably, I am expected to accept the consequences if I don’t (to use my hammer example; I am not required to refrain from beating myself to a pulp with a hammer, but if I do, I am expected to accept that I have now been beaten to a pulp and it’s my own fault). Which means that your example of athletes, rain forests, and so on has precisely zero relevance. I’d suggest that they have negative relevance, but I’m prepared to be reasonable.
Yes, there are other issues we could focus on. We choose to focus on this one among others for reasons which will vary from person to person, but the entire thing that makes many of us focus on this is that these poor obese people don’t freaking deserve their 15 minutes of fame and prospective vast sums of money. Dopers, as a rule, tend to be somewhat down on what they perceive as injustice and idiocy. That you do not perceive it to be so doesn’t matter in the slightest to those of us who do.
Calm. Must remain calm. Can handle non-sequiters. Have certainly grown accustomed to it in the last several minutes.
As most minimally thoughtful people could tell you, “MonicaGate” [aside: I detest that name…] had nothing to do with raising awareness. Was it a perversion of the legal system? Quite possibly. Was it about raising awareness? Not a bit; depending on who you ask, it was either an attempt to besmirch an innocent man’s reputation or it was an attempt to prove that a slimeball was in fact guilty. Neither side would call it an attempt to raise awareness of the dangers of oral sex in the Oval Office, which is about all it raised awareness of.
Here, I’ll try to make this really really simple:
If using the legal to system to raise awareness, then lazy.
If using the legal system to raise awareness, then perverting the legal system.
No where does this imply that all who pervert the legal system are lazy. “If a then b” and “if a then c” does not at all imply “if b then c.”
To make this more concrete:
If I have a Y chromosome, I am male.
If I have a Y chromosome, I am human.
Does this somehow mean that if I am human, I am male?
:smack: I’m an idiot. I thought my link was a U.S. one. Still, the U.S. stats don’t demonstrate an accelerating downward trend during the timespan in which the lawsuits were active. Indeed, the historical downward trend leveled off during that span. No evidence of any effect of the lawsuits there.
Not at all. I believe there is a saying that “the ends do not justify the means.” The goal of “raising awareness” does not justify a misuse of the legal system.
Methinks you misapprehend the difference between “make” and “take.” Fast food companies make money by providing their customers with what the customers want - quick, relatively tasty, cheap food. The plaintiffs are trying to take money they did not earn.
Let me introduce you to another concept, called “mitigation.” Under the law, a party is required to take reasonable steps to lessen the damages caused by the actions or negligence of another. If they fail to do so, they cannot collect those damages from the other party. Here, there was a reasonable step the plaintiffs could have, but failed to take - stop eating fast food. A reasonable person would have noticed that they were gaining weight. A reasonable person also knows that eating too many calories causes weight gain. Ergo, the plaintiffs did not act reasonably to stop their weight gain and mitigate their damages when they continued to eat fast food as they were gaining weight.
You lie about me and call me a bigot and a horriable person, and I’m the one with anger issues? Please.
You overestimate my powers. My statements on an internet message board will not affect the burden the plaintiffs must bear on this mortal coil.
Statements of fact do not bring more hatred into the world.
Holy non sequitur, Batman. The plaintiffs aren’t in the business world. They were eating too much food and having health problems because of it.
I can’t even think of a response to any of this, it is so nonsensical.
First of all, I’m not from the UK. Second, the McLibel people were the ones sued, and they were defending themselves. Had they not done so, they would have owed McDonalds a great deal of money. They gave up two years of their lives to avoid poverty, not to “raise awareness.” Prior to the lawsuit, they had enaged in the old-fashioned and difficult task of presenting their beliefs through publicity and agitation, for which I salute them.
First, let me preface by saying that 1. I am fat, have been all my life, and 2. I think this lawsuit is a total crock.
That said:
**I have a small iota of empathy for some of the tobacco plaintiffs - while I believe in personal responsibility, I am a light smoker, and know how hard it is to quit - but suing fast food institutions for your own laziness and lack of self-control . . . **
Why is it okay for smokers to be addicted to something that is “hard” to give up but fat people are simply lazy and have no self control? I would MUCH have an addiction to nicotine than food, anyday. Why? Because you don’t have to smoke to live. You CANNOT give up food.
I know if I don’t have a cigarette for a few hours, I have a physical reaction that drives me to want to smoke. It’s a physical addiction, just like heroin, or coke - it’s not healthy to keep using the drug, but it can also be very physically painful to stop.
Guess what? If I don’t have sugar for a few hours, I get the same way. Sugar is physically addictive, too, and it is in just about everything we buy to eat these days, whether we want it or not — nicotine isn’t snuck into anything but tobacco products. Dieting is physical and mental torture to do sometimes.
I just find it interesting that somehow it’s “hard” to quit smoking, but being fat is nothing but a character flaw.
I blame nobody but myself for being fat, but to make a snap judgment like that about millions and millions of people really frosts my cookies.
Hee hee hee…I for one am loving this lawsuit. And you guys ain’t seen nothing yet! I’m working on a little old second-hand obesity theory that oughta be worth billions.
You see, according to the NHIS obesity results in 39 million lost days of productivity every year. And who makes up for all these lost work days? That’s right. Poor old non-obesers are working themselves to death to take up the slack.
And I mean that literally. According to studies in Japan some 10,000 people drop dead from overwork every year. And keep in mind that that’s just the ones who literally flat-out die from exhaustion. Once we start applying a little creative statistics and counting all the deaths in which overwork is a contributing factor, we oughta be able to get these numbers up to a few hundred thousand easy.
Hell, I can see a day when we’ll be taxed on the basis of our weight instead of our income. And who’s to say that it wouldn’t fairer that way?
