David zinczenko don t blame the eater

Don’t Blame the Eater By David Zinczenko,The New York Times, November 23, 2002 If ever there were a newspaper headline custom-made f or Jay Leno’s monologue, this was it. Kids taking on McDonald’s this week, suing the company f or making them f at. Isn’t that like middle-aged men suing Porsche f or making them get speeding tickets? Whatever happened to personal responsibility? I tend to sympathize with these portly f ast-f ood patrons, though. Maybe that’s because I used to be one of them. I grew up as a typical mid-1980s latchkey kid. My parents were split up, my dad of f trying to rebuild his lif e, my mom working long hours to make the monthly bills. Lunch and dinner, f or me, was a daily choice between McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Pizza Hut. Then as now, these were the only available options f or an American kid to get an af f ordable meal. By age 15, I had packed 212 pounds of torpid teenage tallow on my once lanky 5-f oot-10 f rame. Then I got lucky. I went to college, joined the Navy Reserves and got involved with a health magazine. I learned how to manage my diet. But most of the teenagers who live, as I once did, on a f ast-f ood diet won’t turn their lives around: They’ve crossed under the golden arches to a likely f ate of lif etime obesity. And the problem isn’t just theirs – it’s all of ours. Bef ore 1994, diabetes in children was generally caused by a genetic disorder – only about 5 percent of childhood cases were obesity-related, or Type 2, diabetes. Today, according to the National Institutes of Health, Type 2 diabetes accounts f or at least 30 percent of all new childhood cases of diabetes in this country. Not surprisingly, money spent to treat diabetes has skyrocketed, too. The Centers f or Disease Control and Prevention estimate that diabetes accounted f or $2.6 billion in health care costs in 1969. Today’s number is an unbelievable $100 billion a year. Shouldn’t we know better than to eat two meals a day in f ast-f ood restaurants? That’s one argument. But where, exactly, are consumers – particularly teenagers – supposed to f ind alternatives? Drive down any thoroughf are in America, and I guarantee you’ll see one of our country’s more than 13,000 McDonald’s restaurants. Now, drive back up the block and try to f ind someplace to buy a grapef ruit. Complicating the lack of alternatives is the lack of inf ormation about what, exactly, we’re consuming. There are no calorie inf ormation charts on f ast-f ood packaging, the way there are on grocery items. Advertisements don’t carry warning labels the way tobacco ads do. Prepared f oods aren’t covered under Food and Drug Administration labeling laws. Some f ast-f ood purveyors will provide calorie inf ormation on request, but even that can be hard to understand. For example, one company’s Web site lists its chicken salad, as containing 150 calories; the almonds and noodles that come with it (an additional 190 calories) are listed separately. Add a serving of the 280-calorie dressing, and you’ve got a health lunch alternative that comes in at 620 calories. But that’s not all. Read the small print on the back of the dressing packet and you’ll realize it actually contains 2.5 servings. If you pour what you’ve been served, you’re suddenly up around 1,040 calories, which is half of the government’s recommended daily calorie intake. And that doesn’t take into account that 450-calorie super-size Coke. Make f un if you will of these kids launching lawsuits against the f ast-f ood industry, but don’t be surprised if you’re the next plaintif f . As with the tobacco industry, it may be only a matter of time bef ore state governments begin to see a direct line between the $1 billion that McDonald’s and Burger King spend each year on advertising and their own swelling health care costs. And I’d say the industry is vulnerable. Fast-f ood companies are marketing to children a product with proven health hazards and no warning labels. They would do well to protect themselves, and their customers, by providing the nutrition inf ormation people need to make inf ormed choices about their products. Without such warnings, we’ll see more sick, obese children and more angry, litigious parents. I say, let the deep-f ried chips f all where they may.