030108 Food Companies Wrongly Blamed For Obesity

Washington - The image of fat people marching to court to sue fast food restaurants for adding pounds (kilograms) to their paunch draws a lot of smirks, but the restaurant industry and food companies aren't laughing.

A trade group for beverage and food companies contends lawyers are trying to take the lead on an issue better left to nutritionists and teachers.

"Who's going to get thinner by a lawsuit? No one," says Gene Grabowski, spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.

In one suit last year, lawyers alleged that burgers, fries and other fast food brought on health problems, including heart attacks and diabetes, for a New York man. A suit against McDonald's Corp. was filed on behalf of New York children who were obese and had diabetes.

Schools that give beverage and snack food companies exclusive rights to sell their goods in vending machines might also find themselves in court.

In 2001, then-Surgeon General David Satcher pointed out that obesity had reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Nearly 60% of adults in the United States are overweight or obese, as are nearly 13% of children.

Without policy changes by schools, government and the fast-food industry, Satcher warned that obesity would surpass tobacco as the leading cause of preventable deaths.

The announcement stirred a fight over who is responsible for the epidemic.

Food companies invested in campaigns promoting exercise and balanced diets, and denied that their products were at the root of America's fat problem.

Hershey Foods and McDonald's gave grants to the International Food Information Council to set up a Web site to encourage children to exercise more. Trade groups joined forces last year to help fund obesity research and lobby Congress to make schools require gym classes.

Some consumer advocates complain the food industry is not doing nearly enough and they want the government to assume a bigger role.

"Who cares if a food company has a Web site aimed at kids that promotes physical activity? What they need to do is change their marketing tactics," said Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Wootan said companies should shrink their large portions, offer healthier meals and quit offering large amounts of food at bargain prices. Her group has even suggested taxing only slightly nutritious foods and using the money to pay for programs to teach people to eat well and exercise.

Wootan said the Agriculture Department, which oversees school lunch and other nutrition programs, should get the authority to regulate foods sold outside the cafeteria to help children control calories.

It is a role the department does not want.

What adults eat should remain a personal decision, government officials argue, and parents should take more responsibility for what their children eat.

"The vast majority of foods consumed by children are purchased by their parents, not by us," said Eric Bost, undersecretary of food and nutrition. If children are chubby, he said, it is "because their parents made them chubby."

Bost also said most elementary schools do not have vending machines.

But many factors, including advertising, influence people's eating decisions, said Marion Nestle, chairman of nutrition studies at New York University and author of "Food Politics," a book critical of the food industry's influence.

Food companies spend about $30 billion a year on advertising -- some of it aimed at children -- and that can make them vulnerable to suits despite their claims that they do not force people to consumer their products, Nestle said.

John Doyle, spokesman for a group that represents restaurants and food makers, Center for Consumer Freedom, dismissed the idea that children are susceptible to advertising messages and control their parents' food purchases.

"It's silly," he said.

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