“I Became a 180kg Guy While Eating Fast Food Everyday.”

Is the McDonald hamburger the principal offender of the youth fatness?

Two obese youths living in New York, Jazline Bradley (19. female) and Gregory Limes (15. male) insist it is. The Federal Court in Manhattan New York opened the first session of the lawsuit that those two filed against the major fast-food franchise McDonald on the 21st. The youths who filed lawsuits are 8 including these two. The New York Times reported that this was the first time that a collective lawsuit asking the responsibility of a fast-food chain for fatness was filed.

Miss Bradley weighs 122kg and Mr. Limes weighs 180kg. They have eaten McDonald`s fast food almost everyday for years. The other kids are suffering from fatness, diabetes, and hypertension. They insist all of this is because of fast food.

A lawyer Samuel Hush pointed out in the court, “The great quantity of fat, sugar, and cholesterol contained in hamburgers and French fries of McDonald is ‘a kind of very prosaic toxic material’ that is bad for the body if teenagers periodically take it,” and insisted, “McDonald brought an epidemic called the youth fatness.”

He insisted that McDonald did not provide sufficient information about the bad influences of fast food and it made teenagers to eat fast food without thinking through billions-of-dollar advertisements.

He represented a man in his fifties, when he filed a lawsuit against McDonald to ask for the responsibility of fatness in July; however, people think there is a better chance of winning this lawsuit because this is a lawsuit against a mammoth corporation for ‘teenagers with immature senses.’

However, the lawyers for McDonalds said, “Any man of sense can know what kind of bad influences are there if you eat fast food often,” and refuted that fatness was ‘of individual responsibility.’

They quoted a scientist Benjamin Franklin`s statement, ‘Eat less if you live longer,’ and asked to dismiss the lawsuit. McDonald also help them saying, “We sufficiently educated people about the calories of fast food through brochures, posters, and web sites.”

The model lawyer who has been fighting with huge cigarette corporations insisting the harm of the cigarette, John Benjaf predicted, “This lawsuit might be difficult in the beginning like the ‘cigarette lawsuit’ but it will gradually gain big strength.”

The problem is that in case of cigarette, most of the facts that it induces cancer or it is toxic are proven, but it is not same for fast food. The lawyer Hush expects that this will be gradually proven, too. He also plans to expand this lawsuit to a collective lawsuit representing all the teenagers under the age of 18, who have health problems due to eating the fast food of McDonald.

The stock price of McDonald has shown a trend of decline since the worries about the bed influences of fast food is spreading for the last few years. The New York Times reported that 61% of the American adults and 14% of minorities (ages between 14 ~ 19) were classified as overweighed people, and added that this figure had been expanded by 3 times in last 20 years.

Ki-Tae Kwon kkt@donga.com