Class-Action Rice Cake
by Luciano D'Orazio

When I go to the doctor's office, I usually receive the same diagnosis: "Luciano, you are too heavy." Admittedly, I am a large fellow, so I nod politely and dictate once again the ways in which I am combating my war with excess lipids. I attempt to eat right, though being from an Italian-Ecuadorian family means I get a double whammy of rich, delicious food. I am in my second year of regular exercise, after two worn-out exercise machines. Vitamins are a daily routine. No other supplements are necessary.

So it was with surprise and shock that my good doctor, under assumedly sound diagnosis, opened his prescription pad and gave me a script and an accompanying envelope. The script was the number of an attorney and in the envelope were depositions implicating my mother as the chief culprit of my girth and a subpoena for a class-action lawsuit. In the suit I was "completely unaware" of the health risks of lasagna, chicken with rice and other fatty, Latinate fare, and it said I should seek suitable monetary restitution from dear old Mom for unwittingly condemning me to a slow death.

Thankfully, the above situation never happened. But a similar situation is occurring in two separate lawsuits in New York. In July 2002, a 56-year-old New York maintenance worker filed suit against McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and Kentucky Fried Chicken, claiming that fast food is directly responsible for his 272 pounds, two heart attacks, diabetes and high blood pressure. He ate nearly all his meals at these establishments, supposedly oblivious to the health risks. A similar suit, a class action filed on behalf of obese and diabetic children in New York, was filed later against McDonald's. Potential suits already are being considered against schools that give such food and beverage companies as Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay and Hershey exclusive rights to sell their wares in vending machines.

Surgeon General David Satcher stated in 2001 that obesity had reached epidemic proportions — nearly 60 percent of adults, as well as nearly 13 percent of children, are overweight or obese. Obesity is quickly surpassing tobacco as the leading cause of preventable death. That middle bulge is a leading cause of heart failure, cancer, diabetes and a host of other maladies. And the war on fat is nothing if not high profile — even celebrities like Al Roker, who generate entire marketing strategies on their ampleness, fight celebrated battles to kick the tire. It is clearly healthier to be leaner than larger.

What these lawsuits ask is whether food providers or food consumers are responsible for our nation of jelly bellies. According to the plaintiffs, the companies that provide food to the public have an obligation to outline the health risks involved. These regulations already exist in the supermarket aisle; the term Recommended Daily Allowance did not just pop into the brains of W.K. Kellogg and Co. to put on a cereal box. Granted, regulation should be passed to the prepared-foods industries, namely, fast food joints — if we are killing ourselves, we should know about it. Large portions should be cut. Value meals should be abolished. Advertising should reflect healthier eating habits, and not push huge-portioned Super Tubby Meals laden with animal lard.

But will Ronald McDonald really push that carrot into your mouth? Does Colonel Sanders drive you to the gym? I certainly know the late Dave Thomas never bothered to check my doctor appointments. Chester Cheetah certainly couldn't take the time to check my blood sugar, lipid count and cholesterol. And those M&M's cannot read an Electro- Cardiogram (EKG) for their lives. Even the snarky peanut ones.

The point is that these lawsuits are missing a fundamental element in the creation of Fatty Nation: choice. The need to eat, or conversely the willpower not to eat, is a conscious action. Those fast food joints are out there to peddle their wares, nothing more. If one truly wants to care about their body, they will either go in knowing what not to eat or just avoid these places altogether. No one is putting a gun to anyone's head and saying, "Go in there and get the Super Size Meal with a shake."

I am not disassociating myself from this. My body shape now is based in large part on the actions I chose before. Lord knows how many times I get caught eating absolute garbage, and knowing the stuff does more harm than good. In that sense, I empathize with these plaintiffs; it is not easy to follow a healthy mode of living. It never was, and it never will be.

But frivolous lawsuits, largely made frivolous because the fast food companies really didn't do anything wrong, will not make these plaintiffs any healthier. All these lawsuits do is distract from the real problem of combating that spare tire. Even if these suits do end up in a monetary settlement or reward of some kind, that reward will not help anyone. There's no telling whether the maintenance worker will take his money and either get a home gym or a year's supply of KFC. Money makes no one thinner. What makes one thinner is the conscious, rational and willful decision to reshape his or her body. One has to have the willpower to put down the shake and grab the bottled water.

We have been bombarded since grade school on fundamentals passed down from the surgeon general, the New England Journal of Medicine and other august medical bodies on the dangers of a high-fat diet; the need to balance one's intake of proteins, carbohydrates and fats; and the necessity of regular exercise and the importance of reduced stress. We will now be three generations removed from the initial push during the Kennedy administration on the need for improved physical health in America's youth.

Please find me one person in these United States that can argue the healthy aspects of gorging to exhaustion, then sitting on the couch watching TV, doing nothing. If everyone understands that "Burger King has it your way," they also get that a Burger King Whopper contains three times the calories of the recommended daily caloric intake. If everyone gets that "Coke is it," they also know that Coke is just water loaded with fattening sugar and heart-racing caffeine. (On the flip side, does anyone expect people to start eating healthy if the plaintiffs win their suits?)

If the magic formula to getting a Charles Atlas body was filing suit against not only my Mom, but the fast food joints, my high school cafeteria, my college dining hall, my local college bar, the diner down the street, the steakhouses, bistros and brasseries in Manhattan and that Argentine place I love two towns over, I would've filed it years ago, with the guarantee that a favorable judgment would make me an Adonis.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's a buttered rice cake with my name on it.

E-mail Luciano D'Orazio at loudogs1@aol.com.

— graphic by Mike Fisher (crspeedy@crspeedy.com)