The risk that such lawsuits will bring our thriving economy to its knees (which is already being done by other governmental decisions and actions) is insignificant compared to the real underlying concept here.

Freedom can be defined as having authority over yourself. Our penchant for idiot litigation (tripping over your own kid at a department store and suing the department store, buying coffee from McDonald's and then suing McDonald's when you're not bright enough to put it somewhere where it can't spill on your crotch) means that we are giving up our freedom. When you hand over the responsibility for your actions to someone else, that person (or entity) will take steps to ensure that your actions look like what they would like regardless of what you would like. You'd like a really hot cup of good coffee? Can't get it because some fool successfully sued McDonald's. That is a small but very clear loss of choice and freedom to the individual.

Worse, saying that the government has to do something about American "obesity" means that we are merely creatures of the government as opposed to the government being the creature of the people. What right does the government have to say that I can't be fat if I wish to? (Of course, you can substitute a lot of things for "can't be fat if I wish to.")

Whenever you make someone or thing else responsible for individual behavior, you are relinquishing your authority to whoever has the responsibility and you're losing your freedom.

-- Jeffrey P. Harrison

Although I would have to agree with the author's conclusion that successful lawsuits against fast-food companies present serious legal and economic consequences, it is naive to imagine that our eating behavior is entirely individual and that we are therefore personally responsible for everything we eat.

Considerable psychological research suggests that eating disorders like overeating, bulimia and anorexia are social, as much as individual, disorders. For example, a 1989 study by Crandall at Princeton University found that healthy people living in communities where binge eating is the norm tend to themselves develop binge-eating disorders as they spend more time in the community.

On a societal level, it is highly likely that the advertising of fast-food companies creates the image of eating enormous amounts of unhealthy food as normative and therefore desirable. In light of the extent to which social factors affect individual eating behavior, any effective intervention against obesity clearly needs to occur on at least a community and, hopefully, national level.

As the national battle against tobacco use has taught us, tax hikes and other individually oriented interventions are ineffective because they ignore the social meaning of the unhealthy behavior. In order to fight obesity, national and state governments need to work together to create legislation that limits the ability of the fast-food companies to create the image of overeating as normative, entertaining, comforting and even healthy.

Although the author cautions against the legal and economic consequences of suing the fast-food companies, she neglects to consider that lawsuits have thus far proved to be the only effective means to bring the U.S. government to act against companies that endanger the health of Americans for profit. The real question to pose is, why doesn't our government act to protect us?

-- Jenny Mutterperl

In our finger-pointing, personal-responsibility-abdicating society, of course people are bound to jump on the bandwagon of blame. Product liability labeling is so ludicrously out of hand because of the propensity of the average blameless American to blame the product for its own misuse and their stupidity and lack of self-control. If Joe Twelve-Pack can sit on his fat ass, blame Mickey D's for his blubber and collect a fat class-action paycheck, who could blame him? Which inspires the question: Are the liquor and beer companies next, alcoholism clearly being their fault? I'm interested to know, however, how recent findings of more biological causes of obesity are going to affect this litigious quest.

-- Rosalie Key

In regards to the article "Can We Sue Our Fat Asses Off?" the author suggests at one point that a difference could be made in American health if restaurants simply changed the way they prepared their food. If the author had done any kind of research, she would have found that fast-food companies have been trying this for many years. All of the big chains have entertained the possibility that there is a large percentage of the population that they could earn as customers if they served healthy food.

Time and time again fast food chains have tried this, and time and time again, those products have failed. Why? Simple. Americans like their fatty food. Virtually every fast-food chain still has a relatively healthy line of products, but a quick look at their financial statements or some case studies will tell you that the demand is simply not there.

Legislation has no business influencing the eating habits of Americans. It doesn't work, it's expensive, and it's a infringement on the rights of those people who simply don't mind being fat and unhealthy. Whether it's a good idea or not is irrelevant.

-- Frank Papa

Megan McArdle, it seems to me, has an ax to grind. A right-wing ax, I think.

In her piece, she throws herself into hysterics about the tidal wave of litigation that will -- just any day now! -- come washing over us as suit-happy lawyers start hauling Burger King and Jack in the Box into court because burgers and fries are fatty.

Say ... does she get her story ideas from Salon's editors, or the Republican Party? I mean, after all, it's the GOP and various right-wing "think tanks" that have been for years beating this drum about litigation run amok, screaming "crisis" over and over again.

Really, McArdle's bias is pretty blatant. Consider this lovely little example:

Companies manage risk by weighing the probability of a given event ... against the money to be gained or lost. Such calculations tend to break down, however, when a single event is both unpredictable and catastrophic; that's why frightened insurance companies stopped offering terrorism coverage in the wake of 9/11. That's also why tobacco companies seem to have decided to settle. With lawsuits piling up and no end in sight, they had to face the risk that, even though the law was on their side, a jury might return a verdict that would bankrupt them.

Spoken like a true corporate shill on loan from the Heritage Foundation. (I especially like that neat little juxtapositioning of the legal attacks on Big Tobacco with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. One can already hear the new slogan: "Lawyers ... America's Homegrown Terrorists!").

Say, Megan, did it ever occur to you that the tobacco industry began settling lawsuits because (a) they were starting to lose them, (b) the law was not on their side, and (c) the law was really not on their side once discovery motions had finally kicked out truckloads of incriminating documents that proved how tobacco executives had lied and lied and lied and lied for decades?

Another thing you've got to love about McArdle's piece is her ever so clever use of weasel words and phrases. She says the tobacco industry "seems" to have decided to settle because things were getting unpredictable. "Seems"? Either you know or you don't know, Megan. If you do know, please let us know how you know. Prove it.

And while you're at it, please prove how the law was on Big Tobacco's side. But good luck. Sure, there are some legal scholars who say that. But it "seems" to me I could find a few scholars and lawyers and judges -- oh, enough, say, to fill either a small city or a large football stadium -- who'd cheerfully dispute your claim.

Personally, I strongly doubt that any litigation crisis is about to befall the fast-food industry. There may be a few areas of "legal exposure," but I doubt they are very big.

But what I don't doubt is that this is just another example of corporate propaganda trying to pawn itself off as news.

-- Roger Keelinga

Interesting piece. My suggestion for dealing with obesity epidemic (aside from suing, which I'd support if it worked, but which, for reasons the author correctly points out, almost certainly won't):

A "Crap Tax" (name borrowed from a friend at the gym): Cigs, booze, junk food, would all be taxed at the register to offset costs to public health of addiction, obesity, etc.

Those who want to drink, smoke, or otherwise consume unwholesome Crap can do so, but they will have to pick up the tab for the costs to society of Crap consumption.

Is this a regressive tax, since poor people, largely those of color statistically, consume the most Crap?

No -- for you would tax the advertising for Crap as well, making it more difficult for Crapmongers to reach their audience.

An idea whose time has come!

The Crap Tax.

-- Martin Garrison

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