Food is the new smoking

Fast food: 'While the high cholesterol is a worry, I find the high chairs go a long way to compensate'

The war against tobacco drags on in Europe, with no prospect of the lawyers being home by Christmas. But already it's clear what the next major litigation-led offensive to cross the Atlantic will be. Yes, as the focus of the zillion-dollar US lawsuit shifts gradually to the fast-food industry, the message on the plaintiff's bench is: move over smoking - no, further over than that - and make room for obesity.

There was no fast-food company involved, but a transatlantic compensation case last month gave an indication of things to come. It saw Virgin Atlantic being sued by a woman passenger who by her own account was "sat on" by another woman - weighing 23 stone - during an 11-hour flight from London to Los Angeles. The other woman was mostly located in an adjoining seat. But according to the complainant, a Barbara Hewson, "her left leg was pressing down on my right leg and her arm was across my chest, pinning me down". Hewson, who was said to be four feet 11 inches (before the flight, anyway), suffered a blood clot, torn leg muscles and sciatica as a result.

In a classic case of adding insult to injury, it emerged in court that the 23-stone woman's husband was also on the plane - but in the seat behind. The crucial weakness in the airline's defence, however, was that it had prior knowledge of the other passenger's size. For the out-bound leg (of the flight, not the passenger) from Los Angeles, it conceded, the woman had been allocated two seats for the price of one.

As I say, this case is not typical of the trend, in that there was no suggestion the airline had caused the LA passenger's weight problem, and there was no mention of a counter-suit against whoever had. But in the US, a country where obesity is in every sense a growing issue, and where portions are sometimes bigger than aeroplane seats, fatty food companies are beginning to feel the heat. According to the International Herald Tribune, a law professor who pioneered cases against the tobacco industry is now targeting the fast-food sector. And ironically, his campaign has received a big boost from, of all places, France.

I say ironically, because the war on tobacco has made little headway in smoke-occupied France. It remains pinned down off Calais, waiting for a Normandy landing of US attorneys to begin the advance on Paris. But the campaign against fast food has struck a chord in a country where farmers ransack McDonald's restaurants to protect French culture, and where the fight against Britain over mad cow disease - la Geurre de la Vache Folle - still smoulders.

So in what seemed like a pre-emptive defence, McDonald's France recently warned parents that they should limit their children's visits to fast-food restaurants to once a week. McDonald's in the US quickly distanced itself from the suggestion. But after having their initial lawsuits dismissed as "frivolous", the US anti-fat lawyers grasped the French admission like a child offered a chicken nugget. And as a separate campaign to include calorie counts on restaurant menus in Europe and elsewhere gathers pace, the parallels with smoking are obvious.

BY COINCIDENCE: this column has just received a letter from a regular correspondent, Ann from Waterford, subtitled "life with three children under four, or why I'm beginning to like McDonald's".

The basic argument she makes is that, in her local town, taking three small children into a typical restaurant is not something to be attempted without Prozac, a mobile baby-changing unit, and good insurance. By contrast, a visit to McDonald's is almost stress-free, thanks to a range of parent support services including wipeable surfaces, unbreakable food containers and toys specially designed to stop your children fighting with each other for several minutes at a time.

Give or take a child, I know exactly how Ann feels. Naturally, if it's a choice between giving your family a healthy, balanced diet, and grabbing a few minutes peace for yourself, any normal parent will opt for the few minutes peace - reasoning that parental sanity is also important to the children. So after years of eating mostly slow food, I too have been drawn by parenthood back into the McDonald's habit. And while the high cholesterol is a worry, I find the high chairs go a long way to compensate.

The first time we tried it, I was pleasantly surprised that you could watch your children eat while simultaneously - get this! - eating yourself. Recently, as confidence in the operation has grown, I've taken to both eating and reading a newspaper.

The way things are going, I might bring a book the next time. My point is that the relaxing effect is clearly addictive for parents, and McDonald's should have warned us. That's why I need a lawyer.

fmcnally@irish-times.ie