This suing for money is getting out of hand. Here in Australia, insurance companies are on the brink of collapse because of it, and that includes the ones who insure medical specialists. We might lose vital medical services such as neurosurgeons and midwives soon because of this crisis. And now fast food?

For fast food, though, I can propose a possible solution:

Instead of forcing these companies to pay millions of dollars to specific individuals, force them to pay that money into research on alternative, lower-fat versions of their food, and publicly trial and market both kinds.

There are already examples of this in Australia. A couple of Australian pizza chains have reduced the fat in their pizza dough to nearly zero. And a small takeaway hamburger shop at Bondi Beach sold fat-free hamburgers and French fries that were 95 percent fat free. They baked the fries, and the food from there was still quite delicious. Sadly, this last shop closed down because greedy property owners demanded higher rents from local properties, which ensured only the richest food places could stay open.

But still, forcing fast-food companies to provide alternatives is far better than awarding millions of dollars to fast-food addicts who will probably end up spending a lot of their winnings on artery-clogging fast food anyway.

-- Rick Pratchett

This is a timely subject, and I'm sure, we haven't heard the last of it.

The problem is that fast-food emporiums are not the sole culprit, though they may be the easiest ones to target.

Several years ago, I started doing research about healthy eating and food additives when I discovered that I was infertile (though healthy, active and not overweight). Now for the bad news: almost everything on the grocery store shelves contains suspect chemicals, denatured ingredients, misleading nutritional information, etc. The best way to eat healthy is to cook from scratch or to use the most minimally processed foods possible.

More bad news: All those products labeled "low fat" and "healthy" are just as loaded with killer ingredients (trans-fatty acids, etc.) and the "unhealthy" stuff.

Now, when I shop, I read every label and every item in the ingredient list.

It all boils down to dollars: Wholesome foods don't have a long shelf life, and they don't market well. So companies produce and sell what does. As long as they are raking in profits, they aren't concerned about 10-year-olds with high blood pressure, high blood sugar and high cholesterol.

But we, as a nation, should be.

-- Kimberly Schramm

I eagerly dived into "Can We Sue Our Own Fat Asses Off", but as soon as I ran into the first instance of California bashing, the article soured, and I grew angry.

What is it with people from the Midwest, anyway? If they're so jealous of California, perhaps they should (a) stop drinking our wine, (b) stop using our software and computers, (c) stop flying in our airplanes, (d) stop watching our movies, (e) stop eating our fruit and vegetables, (f) stop drinking our milk, and eating our cheese ... etc.

-- Chris Edmonds

Adults can choose to eat whatever they want, but if activists stick to suing companies that overtly market their unhealthy food to children I have no doubt the activists will win.

McDonald's-type Happy Meals and toy tie-ins are strong evidence of cynical and injurious capitalism at its worst. Juries will see this and punish greedy fast-food barons. (Similarly Taco Bell-type marketing to teenagers will be a smoking gun for activists who want to pursue it.)

I wish the activists well.

-- Dennis Seals

Litigation to recover the health costs of fast food may be just, but it is an amazingly inefficient way to get fast-food companies to internalize those costs. So much otherwise productive time, energy, money, and judicial and political resources will be wasted, and not much of the recovery, if any, will go to the "victims"; most will go to the enforcers (lawyers).

A broad-based ex ante scheme would be much better. A significant sales tax on fast food would decrease consumer demand and consumption while funding the government's service of the public health costs. A gross-revenues tax on the fast-food producer would have a similar effect while also requiring the producer, rather than the consumer, to internalize the health costs of the fast food (since producers will be under market pressure to keep prices low). The latter scheme might provide greater decreases in the number of fast-food firms in the market, as well, although the smaller firms, requiring higher profit margins, would probably fall first.

Another ex ante approach would be to require a greater and more prominent disclosure of the downsides of a problem. For example, it might not be enough for McDonald's to provide, in fine print, the caloric value of the Big Mac meal. They might be required, instead, to market the negative truths of the Big Mac in as prominent and flashy a manner as the positives -- the beautiful people enjoying steaming burgers would have to be accompanied in advertisements by fat, sweaty, acned customers, some exhibiting symptoms of extreme heart disease or Type II diabetes. This extreme version of truth in advertising might raise some First Amendment concerns, but it would likely have the desired effect of decreasing demand, as well. Additionally, such a regime would require fast-food producer/advertisers to internalize the information and opportunity costs currently borne by consumers, who must research, on their own if at all, the health risks and severity of those risks, of the fast foods they buy.

-- Michael Zara

Reading this article made me very, very mad.

I am continually appalled by the decreasing lack of personal responsibility among Americans. I find it extremely hard to believe that the majority of the U.S. population by now does not know that eating a diet of Big Macs and Ho-Hos without any physical activity is a recipe for disaster. We know full well what we should be doing in terms of diet and exercise, but for the most part don't want to be bothered with the discipline it takes to live a healthy lifestyle, or even just to eat the "bad stuff" in moderation. No, it's much easier to blame someone else! After all, if the blame can be placed externally, on the companies that make and market junk food, then Americans don't have to make the required lifestyle changes -- they'll just wait for the big class-action payout. It's conveniently Somebody Else's Problem, never My Problem.

Only in America. Sheesh.

-- Amy Dalal

Thank you for Megan McArdle's article. I found it very informative but I wish that she had gone a little bit deeper into one point: Why is it that in America too many people do not want to take responsibility for their own actions? I mean, if we can't control ourselves then it must be someone else's fault, right? While I dislike fast food restaurants and refuse to eat the garbage that they call food, I find that the thought of suing them for our own poor choices appalling. The litigious nature of American society disgusts me. While I believe that there are times and places to sue corporations (such as providing false information or flouting environmental regulations), issues like this not only waste resources that could be better spent better (like enforcing environmental regulations), but they also make Americans look like a bunch of whiny crybabies!

We're the ones who eat their food, so we're the ones to blame for our fat asses. I'm 5'7" and have a big frame. When I graduated from high school I was a good 160 pounds. By the time I was married eight years later, I was 185. After four months of marriage, I ballooned up to 210. This was my own fault. Too much eating out, too many desserts, and very little exercise led to my expanded waistline. After much hard work, I am down to 185 again and am still on my way down. I eat healthier, moderate my intake of sweets, practice yoga every day, and jog 3 to 5 miles a week. Not only am I now able to find clothes that fit better, I feel better both physical and mentally.

People let themselves go to waste, causing them to feel terrible, and rather than take responsibility for the poor choices they make, they want to find someone else to blame. Instead of suing our fat asses, we need to get up off our fat asses. We're told that this is the information age, so what we need is an information solution. I like Dr. Diana Berger's idea to force the companies to list the nutritional information on the wrapper of a Big Mac (or box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts) and let the buyer beware. Those that care about their own well-being may start to change their habits. Those that don't will have to live (or die) with the consequences.

-- Erick Cloward

Please note that the tobacco companies settled the lawsuit because they got something big out of it: for agreeing to tax (mostly) blue-collar smokers more per pack and pass on the annual revenue to the states for the resultant aggrandizement of the legal/political class (mostly white-collar) the tobacco companies were granted a de facto license to become a cartel. This means that any new tobacco company must pay a huge entry fee to join the cartel, effectively eliminating any new competition. This now makes the political/legal class the partners (and also just as bad?) of the tobacco companies, eagerly awaiting the annual paycheck as people smoke and stay addicted.

Also note that very few states receiving this money are now using it as originally promised -- to mitigate tobacco-related healthcare costs and to educate the children ("It's all about the children," remember?) about the evils of tobacco. So now that the dust and smoke have settled, we see the real winners of this scheme -- white collars beat blue collars again. The so-called aggrieved class (smokers and children) are paying more and not getting education and promised healthcare. Tobacco company execs and shareholders see stock prices go up. Lawyers make zillions and politicians have a springboard to bigger office with the money support of the legal class that just got rich.

As I.F. Stone said, "Follow the money." Honest people will see this as an unconstitutional form of national taxation without congressional input. Why would anybody think that a tobacco-related "victory" of this magnitude and cleverness would not engender more shakedowns? Of course the fast-food and alcohol businesses are nervous.

-- Ted DiSante

Litigation will have almost no impact on obesity, not because it won't affect American diets, but because it misses the target. At the root of our obesity problem is America's repulsive sedentariness, abetted by a culture and infrastructure devoted to physical convenience. I don't dispute the awfulness of our diets, but consider that Europeans (who are less obese than Americans, on average) drink wine with breakfast and put mayonnaise on their French fries. They also own fewer cars and their television programming is dreadful.

Some statistics indicate that as many as 40 percent of American adults get no exercise at all. That number doesn't mean that 60 percent of American adults go to the gym twice a week; it means that 60 percent of American adults walk a few minutes every day. Our national obsession with television, desk work, and automotive transport has removed nearly every inch of mobility from our daily lives. We constructed our cities around the conceits that we can drive from front door to front door, and that the only acceptable social activity is watching television. If we want to address the "obesity epidemic," we need to ask a deeper, more disturbing question: Why don't Americans do anything anymore? How is this McDonald's fault?

-- Paul Souders

Litigation may be the only answer. The abuses in food preparation and processing run so deep that for consumers to rebel they'd have to stop eating practically everything. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to find slightly obese juries just waiting to pin the blame on some company with oodles of money.

OK. So, making food healthier may raise its cost, but then won't salaries nationwide have to increase too? Hmm ...

-- Steven Kapsinow

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