Consumers sue fast food giants

An extraordinary court case has entered the US judicial system. According to a recent BBC news report a group of overweight Americans has sued several US fast food giants accusing them of knowingly serving meals that cause obesity and disease, the BBC reports.

The lawsuit - filed in New York State Supreme Court in the Bronx - says that McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and Kentucky Fried Chicken misled customers by enticing them with greasy, salty and sugary food.

"The fast-food industry has wrecked my life,"​ Caesar Barbar, one of the plaintiffs, told the New York Post​.

Mr Barbar - a 57-year-old maintenance supervisor who weighs almost 125 kilograms - said he regularly ate fast food until 1996, when a doctor warned his diet could potentially kill him.

A recent assessment of obesity in the US found that more than half of all adult Americans were overweight. About 54 million adults were classified as obese - that is people who are about 15 kilos or more over the healthy norm based on height - and hundreds of thousands of deaths each year were attributed to obesity-related diseases.

Health groups say one of the biggest culprits for this growing epidemic is junk food, and that the best time to break the cycle between obesity and bad eating habits is when people are young.

Certain consumer groups in the US and Europe, concerned about the increase in obesity, have proposed that a 'fat tax' be imposed on the food industry for less than healthy product lines. Met with little enthusiasm it could be some time, if ever, that such a structure is put into place. The court case in the US goes one step further and clearly suggests that all responsibility is in the hands of the food industry - and as such, implicitly removes the free will of the consumer. The outcome of the lawsuit will be awaited with interest by some, and fear by others.