Warren Buffet was warned off buying Burger King last week. I sense an ineviatble confrontation growing as more people understand the linkage between junk food and our obesity epidemic. Soft drinks and junk food will become socially unacceptable as are smokers and be relegated to those that cannot kick the habit.
In particular, we will rebel against the billions spent advertising to our children.
"If Big Food were treated like Big Tobacco, McDonald's would probably have to issue a warning on the behind-the-counter menu disclosing the danger of the fat in most of its offerings. And if the FDA were to crack down and ask food companies to issue warning labels, it would be expensive. When the FDA required food companies to use nutrition labels in 1993, the cost to food manufacturers was estimated at somewhere between $1.4 billion and $2.3 billion--and that's excluding the cost of the nutritional analyses.
The idea that families of obesity victims could sue Burger King or Hostess initially seems preposterous. Since tobacco smokers were often faithful to one brand of cigarettes, it is easy for victims' families to hold one company responsible. In the case of obesity, it would be impossible to trace all the fat and food consumption that led to an individual's death. But legal action could be possible on a state level. Attorneys general could tally the total state cost of obesity and determine the sales of individual companies such as Taco Bell or Mars.
"If you asked lawyers 40 years ago whether they could sue the tobacco companies, they'd have told you it couldn't happen," Banzhaf says. "At the time, no lawyer would have taken those cases. Can the same thing happen with regard to food? It might be more difficult, but if the states could do it with tobacco, they can do it with food."
10:04:48 PM 
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