Congress could put the burden back on patrons

By MICHAEL F. JACOBSON
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
If men from Mars visited Washington this month, they might be inclined to believe that America's restaurants were collapsing under the weight of an epidemic of lawsuits filed by overweight patrons. Most earthlings know that the real epidemic is one of obesity, not lawsuits.
Government, for the most part, has done virtually nothing to curb obesity. The House of Representatives' meek response is to offer special protection to an industry that doesn't need it. And the Bush administration's response to obesity consists of measuring the problem and producing public service announcements about exercise.
There's much that federal and state governments could be doing. They could get junk food out of schools. Take ads for high-calorie, low-nutrition foods off of children's television programming.
Legislation required
If Congress wanted to discourage lawsuits against the restaurant industry and encourage Americans to exercise personal responsibility in their food choices, it would pass legislation requiring nutrition information on chain restaurant menus. With calorie counts right on menu boards, consumers could see that a Big Mac had 590 calories. (Despite the industry's claim that this would be impossible, the 700-restaurant Ruby Tuesday chain recently announced that it will put nutrition information for each of its dishes on all of its menus.)
Customers so armed with that nutrition information would surely have a much harder time convincing judges and juries that restaurants were to blame for weight gain or obesity.
While that lone obesity-related case against McDonald's was called frivolous by the restaurant industry, and was eventually dismissed by the judge, it was probably one of the most successful suits that ever failed. It undoubtedly spurred the fast-food industry to add more healthful items to its menus and, in the case of McDonald's, to drop its "supersized" fries and drinks.
Obese Americans should seek nutrition advice, not legal advice. But we shouldn't stand by and let Congress take an entire industry off the hook at the expense of our legal rights. Ronald McDonald seems to pay a lot more attention to potential plaintiffs than he does to politicians.
XMichael F. Jacobson is executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. He wrote this for the New York Daily News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.