Dr. Douglass on fast food and personal responsibility

In America, bigger is ALWAYS better

Nowhere is this _expression more true than in our food consumption. And restaurants - especially fast-food chains - know it. Their portion sizes have steadily increased for years, and people are eating it up with no end in sight.

But my question has always been: Why?

Why do people eat more than they should, more than they need, and more than they're even HUNGRY for? I've always thought it was simply a matter of marketing. After all, America is a value-minded culture - look at the success of Wal-Mart. In America, we want more for our money, and bigger is better. One can hardly blame fast-food makers for capitalizing on this cultural norm. Whether this is in some way human nature or strictly a result of cultural programming, I can't say for certain. However, some new evidence sheds a little light on the subject...

According to 3 studies of eating habits released in various obesity forums in October:
Test subjects always ate more when presented with more food - except in the case of vegetables
When offered the same quantity of a food in one large helping or several smaller ones, subjects invariably selected the larger portion
Subjects were LESS LIKELY to over-consume foods if they served themselves rather than simply accepting the portion they were offered
The mental link between overeating and larger portions starts as early as age 2
Hmmm. Apparently, the tendency to overeat has at least something to do with how foods are presented to us. If we're offered more food (or enticed to buy it for "just 39 cents more!"), we eat more.

The solution, of course, is knowledge. If we KNOW we're being marketed to in a way that exploits our predispositions - whether they're natural or otherwise - it follows that it might make it easier to resist the urge to overeat. But NOOOO! Another unfortunate American cultural phenomenon is that nobody's to blame for their own waistline. These people would rather sue McDonald's and friends - legal, free-market enterprises (albeit unhealthy ones) - than merely forcing them out of business with their self-discipline and good sense.

But it looks like this might not be able to happen much longer.

Standing up for freedom - to get fat!

Loathe as I am to defend the fast-food joints of the world, enough is enough.

Fast-food restaurants (or candy-makers or soft-drink manufacturers, for that matter) are not holding guns to our heads and forcing us to buy, eat, and drink their products. We do that all by ourselves...

That's why it's so ridiculous to me that some people out there are suing purveyors of junk foods for their deleterious effects. Last year, a California man sued Kraft foods because Oreo cookies are fattening. Numerous folks have sued McDonalds and other restaurants for "making" them fat - one of these cases is still pending.

But it might soon be erased form the dockets, if a new bill before Congress is passed. The measure, informally known as the "Cheeseburger" bill, would make obesity-related lawsuits illegal under federal law (20 states already have such laws on the books).

Though I'm staunchly anti-fast-food, I would consider the passage of this law a victory for personal freedoms. And it would be a welcome sea-change for the courts, who several years ago bastardized the very free-market system they are charged with protecting by forcing tobacco companies to pony up an obscene amount of damages to several states for cigarette-related liability claims.

Bottom Line: It is not the government's job to protect us from ourselves. The free market is comprised of all manner of things - some good for us, some not - and it's up to us to choose wisely from among them...

And it's nobody's fault but our own when we don't.

Eschewing, not suing,

William Campbell Douglass II, MD