We are what we eat

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Before I even get into this column, I think I should disclose something. I like to eat. In fact, I really like to eat. And because I like to eat, let's just say I'm calorically challenged. Oh, the heck with it, I'm fat. Plain and simple.

But I'm fat because I like to eat, not because someone made me eat. It's an important distinction and one worth remembering now, because a lot of lawyers are set to tell me that it's not my fault I like to eat. It's the fast-food industry's fault for "sucking me in" to eat. What a relief to hear that! All these years I've been blaming myself for my gluttony, when in fact, it was McDonald's and Arby's and Burger King and Pizza Hut all conspiring in a calorie-busting cabal to turn me into the slothful pig I've become.

I'd like to feel some consolation here, but I don't. McDonald's fries are tempting, but I did the eating. Arby's roast beef sandwiches are works of art, but I was the one who rammed those works of art down my throat. And Burger King's whoppers are as close to culinary burger perfection as you can get, but I was the one who perfectly chomped on one after another.

Bottom line: I'm the reason why I'm overweight. No one made me do it. I did it. And judging by the most recent statistics that show six out of 10 Americans are in a similar bond, I'm clearly not alone.

Look, there's nothing wrong with being fat, save a host of potential illnesses that could crop up as a result. But there's everything wrong with shifting the blame for our fat selves to a fat target, like the fast-food industry.

Like I said, McDonald's makes the fries, but we eat them. The folks at the Golden Arches aren't some sinister Svengalis, drugging us into wolfing down their food. We do that.

But that's not how growing teams of trial lawyers see it. They say the fast-food guys are pulling a fast one on us, luring us in and filling our waistlines out. Having set their legal sights on a target that could make Big Tobacco look like a big appetizer, these legal eagles see dollar signs in Big Mac signs.

Now it's out of control. A 300-pound 12-year-old is suing McDonald's because he didn't know eating a lot of burgers and a lot of fries puts on a lot of weight. I just wonder whether he ever ran his eating habits by his parents, or whether the parents themselves put him up to it. The killer about the kid is that he did all this dining alone. (Great, we were so worried about our kids using drugs on some dark street corner. Who knew they'd be chowing down quarter-pounders at the corner Mickey Dees?)

Ours is an amazingly litigious society. We sue for everything and against everyone. We trip outside a store; we sue the store. We stumble getting off a bus; we sue the bus company or the city, or both. We smoke today, knowing full well the risks, and then we sue the tobacco companies, who've long ago spelled out the risks.

Believe me, I'm not an apologist for Big Tobacco or Big Fast Food. Some of them do know how to suck you in. Their advertising is clever and their temptations amazingly effective. But as clever as they are and as tempting as they are, we are the ones who smoke, and we are the ones who eat.

Clearly, there's a distinction here. The tobacco companies knew quite early on the addictive nature of their product, but warnings were slapped on cigarettes more than 30 years ago. We knew then and we know now the dangers. Anyone taking a puff since knew, and knows, the risks.

Food is another matter. Since the first scale was put on this planet, humans have understood, all too cruelly, the correlation between what we eat and what we weigh. And save those incredible individuals gifted with remarkable metabolisms and/or tapeworms, the more we eat, the more we weigh.

You don't need a lawyer to tell you that. Just a mirror.

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Neil Cavuto is managing editor of Business News at FOX News Channel. He is also the host of "Your World with Neil Cavuto" and "Cavuto on Business." Comment by clicking here.

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