# Obesity lawsuit -- a real casus belly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092 "2003-01-16T23:24:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/1 "2003-01-16T23:24:38Z")
Several teenagers have filed suit, alleging that [McDonalds made them fat](http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2383). > [@](#): > > [Gregory] Rhymes, 15, of the Bronx, just wants his money and is taking McDonald’s to court, claiming that the beleaguered burger giant made him fat. > > Super-sized at 400-plus pounds and standing only 5-foot-6, Rhymes says he ate at McDonald’s nearly every day, sometimes several times a day, ever since he started first grade — about 3,300 days straight. “I normally order the Big Mac, fries, ice cream and a shake,” Rhymes explained in his affidavit. “I like to Super Size my orders.” > > …Eight other fat kids in New York have piled on, along with their parents, claiming that McDonald’s is out to deliberately destroy the well-being of a whole generation of children. > > …“Nobody thinks that going to McDonald’s can be unhealthy because McDonald’s promotes their food as healthy,” says Hirsch, painting us as a nation of morons. “Young people are not in a position to make a choice after the onslaught of advertising and promotions.” Do you agree with this suit? What will be its resolution? Will it go to trial? Which side will win? ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/2 "2003-01-16T23:53:01Z")
[“Help. the clown forcefed me Big Macs!”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=145422&highlight=mcdonalds+lawsuit) The link to CNN expired, but it appears to be the same lawsuit. The consensus view is that the suit doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and it will disappear long before trial. ---
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/3 "2003-01-16T23:56:48Z")
Again, way to surrender ALL responsibility, folks. While I agree that McDonalds spends an inordinate amount of money on advertising (apparently lots aimed at children, according to _Fast Food Nation_), I’m not sure a lawsuit claiming they “made me fat” is the best way to deal with this. I’d be surprised if this actually got to the point where a trial began. I wonder if McD’s would be willing to make a cash settlement just to stop all the publicity. While a preteen may not know the nutritional value of every food available for sale, where were the parents? > [@](#): > > Gregory’s mother, Ruth Rhymes, thinks it’s only fair that her porky kid should now try sinking his teeth into the Golden Arches. “I had no idea that he was destroying his self,” she said in papers filed in Manhattan federal court. “I had no idea.” While a 15 year old may have a job, if this indeed had been going on for years, how could she not know? Where did he get the money to buy his super sized meals every day? Not that I condone this, but maybe he should sue mom instead. Grr. This is a real hot spot for me. ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/4 "2003-01-17T00:05:02Z")
The suit is utterly without merit. It will not go to trial, because the judge will realize how ridiculous it is. However, the still-born case will receive lots of press, spurring on the “public interest” groups who clammor for a special tax on foods they don’t agree with. Politicians from the nanny-state mindset will draft legislation for such a tax. It will be narrowly defeated, and forgotten. Life will go on. In the future, some other fat kid will say he didn’t know any better, either, Mickey D’s made him rolly-polly, waaaaah, and the cycle will continue. Jeff ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/5 "2003-01-17T00:09:13Z")
I’m glad responsibility can be shifted into a law suit. > [@](#): > > Young people are not in a position to make a choice after the onslaught of advertising and promotions. Hmm, there’s the option of not watching TV, not going to McDonald’s and not buying their food. The nutrional facts according to this website have been around almost the whole lifetime of the 15yo.: > [@](#): > > [http://www.mcspotlight.org/people/witnesses/nutrition/oakley.html](http://www.mcspotlight.org/people/witnesses/nutrition/oakley.html) 35. In the Further and Better Particulars it is alleged that McDonald’s food is high in fat and saturated fat and low in vitamins and fibre content and as such the food damages health. The nutritional leaflet dated 1989 and entitled “McDonald’s Food - The Facts” which is produced by our department accurately lists all the ingredients in McDonald’s products at the time they were in circulation. The data contained in the leaflets was prepared by independent nutrition experts following an analysis of all our products. ---
**Author:** ![Tars\_Tarkas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/6 "2003-01-17T00:14:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Gregory’s mother, Ruth Rhymes, thinks it’s only fair that her porky kid should now try sinking his teeth into the Golden Arches. “I had no idea that he was destroying his self,” she said in papers filed in Manhattan federal court. “I had no idea.” I bet she has no idea about a lot of things. “I have to pay the credit card bill? I had no idea!” ---
**Author:** ![bluecanary](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bluecanary/32/3614_2.png) [@bluecanary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bluecanary)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/7 "2003-01-17T00:23:23Z")
Is there an action group that campaigns FOR recognition of personal responsibility and AGAINST this sort of [unsuitable-for-GD-word]? If so, I want to join it. ---
**Author:** ![Gaijin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/838e76/32.png) [@Gaijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaijin)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/8 "2003-01-17T00:31:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElJeffe \* > \*\*The suit is utterly without merit. It will not go to trial, because the judge will realize how ridiculous it is. \*\* I thought the same thing about the people who cried, “I didn’t _know_ that cigarettes would give me cancer!” How long will it be before those wacky The [Truth.Net](http://Truth.Net) people start telling the kids to take a stand against Big Fat, I wonder? “These people are trying to put you into a group! How are you taking a stand?” And then they’ll start piling body bags outside of the McDonald’s Corporate HQ and shouting over a megaphone that X number of people die every year from cheeseburgers. No, not from heart disease, or acquired diabetes, or something similar, but from friggin’ cheeseburgers. ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/9 "2003-01-17T01:33:10Z")
> [@](#): > > I thought the same thing about the people who cried, “I didn’t know that cigarettes would give me cancer!” Yes, but I like to think there’s a difference. (Of course, I fully think the tobacco lawsuits are mondo retardo, as well - maybe 40 years ago I’d buy it, but not today, sorry, uh-uh.) Big Tobacco™ for years pretended that there was nothing wrong with cigarettes. Granted, everyone who had two brain cells to rub together knew differently, but there was still a (vaguely) plausible chance that somebody could legitimately not know that ingesting large quantities of tar and ash into your lungs might be just a tad unhealthy. But this is _fast food_, fer Pete’s sake! Nobody even bothers pretending that it’s healthy! It is advertised as being two things: a.) fast, and b.) food (and the ‘food’ bit is debateable, in the case of McD’s). There’s been nutritional information out on it for, as someone pointed out, the entire life-span of the lard-ass in question. Saying that he didn’t know fast food is bad for you (and further, that his mom - presumably an actual adult, with reasoning capabilities and everything - didn’t know) is comparable to saying he didn’t know that sticking your hand in the blender while it’s on might, ya know, kinda hurt. It’s a given. It’s part of the definition of “fast food”: **fast food** : noun. A substance usually resembling food, devoid of nutritional value, and typically submerged in boiling lard until it achieves a cholestrol content sufficient to kill a yak. Also typically quite tasty. So call me a blind optimist, but I still have a lingering shred of trust in the legal system’s ability to laugh this case out of the court. Jeff ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/10 "2003-01-17T01:43:52Z")
I have read nothing more than the title of this thread. I have nothing to contribute. I post only to berate **december** for his unspeakable perversion of all that is decent, for his shameless and vile corruption of the Mother Tongue. Have you no shame, sir! Finally, have you no shame! ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/11 "2003-01-17T03:37:09Z")
Seriously. That’s 2/3 of a pun–P U. ---
**Author:** ![Virgowitch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/9fc348/32.png) [@Virgowitch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Virgowitch)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/12 "2003-01-17T06:17:55Z")
for letting them grow up to be lazy fat asses? ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Maximino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e95f7d/32.png) [@Mighty\_Maximino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Maximino)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/13 "2003-01-17T06:23:19Z")
It’s a real shame that this lawsuit is so stupid. Obviously the courts are not the place to settle the issue, and it just makes everyone involved look deservedly bad. But the underlying question is pretty interesting, and unlikely to be addressed in the fracas – why are Americans getting so fat, so quickly? ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/14 "2003-01-17T06:26:24Z")
I just wanted to stop by and say I love the thread title (so there, you guys 😛 ), and that article is HILARIOUS!! 😃 > [@](#): > > “I had no idea that he was destroying his self,” she said in papers filed in Manhattan federal court. “I had no idea.” > > No idea! Little Gregory just ran up to bed one night at a nice 90 pounds and — SHAZAM!!! — the next morning he came floating down the steps looking like the Goodyear blimp. > > \< snip \> > > Two of Rhymes’…co-plaintiffs are the Bradley sisters, Jazlyn, 19, and Shakima, 17, of Brooklyn, weighing in collectively at 485 pounds. Jazlyn told the New York Times that she starts her day with a Super-sized McMuffin and ends it with a Big Mac and apple pie. It’s McDonald’s fault, in short, that the days don’t start in the Bradley house with a good bowl of Total and end with some roasted chicken and broccoli. > > \< snip \> > > Short of halting all promotions or switching to a menu of grilled vegetables, I’m not sure how McDonald’s is supposed to fix things. One answer, I suppose, might be to get rid of those drive-through ordering machines and make people come inside to order. Like good bartenders, McDonald’s order takers could be trained to keep a sharp eye out for people who look like they’ve had too much. When someone like Gregory Rhymes [comes] in, or one of…Bradley girls, they could be told, nicely, for their own good, “I’m sorry, but I think you’ve had enough.” Har. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tars\_Tarkas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/15 "2003-01-17T09:24:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gaijin \* > \*\* > How long will it be before those wacky The [Truth.Net](http://Truth.Net) people start telling the kids to take a stand against Big Fat, I wonder? “These people are trying to put you into a group! How are you taking a stand?” And then they’ll start piling body bags outside of the McDonald’s Corporate HQ and shouting over a megaphone that X number of people die every year from cheeseburgers. No, not from heart disease, or acquired diabetes, or something similar, but from friggin’ cheeseburgers. \*\* Not long enough. we got people claiming my SUV supports terrorism, yet it gets better gas mileage than my former car, which apparently doesn’t. Truth with start targeting other things soon, and hopefully by then i will be rich enough to fund my own commercials lambasting Truth. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/16 "2003-01-17T10:43:06Z")
Here’s some things I believe:[ul][_]McDonald’s can’t afford to lose this suit, or even settle it. Too many other cases would follow.[_]The analogy to liquor liability is funny. However, those ideas it once sounded funny when applied to drinking. Now liquor provider’s liability is accepted law – both liability to the drinker and liability to someone the drunk person harms.[_]The plaintiff does have some good points. IMHO fast food places do encourage unhealthy eating. Their ads probably do affect children.[_]I see a realistic chance that the plaintiffs might prevail, although Mcdonald’s would use all possible appeals.I hope this case will be a wake-up call to all fast food outlets to change their marketing approach. That could make a significant contribution to fighting obesity, which is a, uh, growing medical problem in the US, and worldwide.[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/17 "2003-01-17T12:42:28Z")
There’s another point for McDonald’s: scientific evidence indicates that pretty much any nutrient in sufficient quantity is bad for you. Its not a mayter of Fat = bad and vegetable = good. Those kids would have ended up with some other problem eating “Healthy Snax”, if they ate that much of it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/18 "2003-01-17T12:46:37Z")
One of the best thread titles ever! Tip o’ the hat to December. 🙂 As to the topic, if McDonalds made those kids fat, then their school made them stupid. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/19 "2003-01-17T13:44:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Robb \* > \*\*The consensus view is that the suit doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and it will disappear long before trial. \*\* That’s what they said about the lawsuits against gun manufacturers, when they were sued for the damage caused by criminals who stole their products and used them illegally… ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092/20 "2003-01-17T14:37:24Z")
Tobacco, too. The packs had warnings. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obesity-lawsuit-a-real-casus-belly/149092.md?page=2)