Cases Closed

For the trial lawyers of the world who, with sights set on and retirement funds planned around fast-food lawsuits, and for the high-minded nutritionists who are adamantly certain that extra poundage can be wiped away by signing on to a set of one-size-fits-all dietary guidelines, obesity is a simple

issue, sketched in broad strokes of black and white. By their accounting, those who carry extra weight eat too much, often, they say, at quick-service restaurants, the designated demon in this brewing legal scuffle. Sue restaurants and nibble no more than the magic number of calories each day and all of America will have buff Hollywood bods and almost no serious health problems.

Oddly, though, the rest of the world has not been blessed with the same crystalline clarity. Those who grapple with weight gain and loss understand it to be a devious and dastardly issue, larger, more complicated and insidiously stubborn than mere eating habits alone. Increasingly, the scientific and academic communities, too, are discovering that far more than food consumption plays roles in America's dietary dilemma, conceding that Big Macs and Bulky Boy dinners alone are by no means the sole culprits.

Suburban sprawl contributes mightily to the nation's so-called obesity epidemic, according to a report released last month by Reid Ewing, a research professor at the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland. Six pounds is the average amount that those who live in spacious suburban communities outweigh their city-dwelling counterparts. They also have higher blood pressure. The differences are presumed to be a function of greater dependency on cars and less inclination to participate in physical activities.

(Memo to trial lawyers: Can urban planners be sued for not providing enough places to walk?)

Another study tackles epigenetic variation and fetal programming, ponderously complex topics that have sprung from the human genome project. In essence, this body of research indicates that a mother's diet during pregnancy very likely has lifelong impact, laying groundwork for obesity, heart diseases, diabetes and hypertension that develop decades later. In the past, blame for these conditions typically has fallen too quickly and easily on fast-food diets and weak-willed diners. Counterintuitively, though, low birth-weight babies are at greater risk for obesity than those of normal weight, according to Dr. David Barker, director of the Environmental Epidemiology Unit at Southampton General Hospital at the University of Southampton, England. Cute, chubby babies, on the other hand, are more prone to certain types of adult-onset cancers. "What came shining through is that birth weight affects the risk of diabetes, coronary heart disease, obesity, hypertension and breast or prostate cancers," Barker reported at a recent conference.

(Memo to trial lawyers: Can mothers be forced to settle with their overweight children, paying handsomely for the prenatal damage done?)

With obesity's causes both murky and complicated even to scientific eyes, castigating and trying to cash in on fast-food chains for the number of overweight Americans is not the right pathway to eventual easing of the issue.

(Memo to trial lawyers: Is it time to pack your legal briefs and move on?)

pdailey@reedbusiness.com