First attempted in March 2004 the American Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act was successfully reintroduced in October 2005. The Act, nicknamed “the Cheeseburger Bill” has a purpose of protecting the fast food corporations from being sued by their own clients. The act says that the legal responsibility for consuming products stuffed with sugar and fat and harming their own health fully lies on the customers of fast food restaurants.
The film “Supersize Me” has revealed horrifying details. The experiment made in the film shows how consuming of the fast food influences the human body, presents a visual demonstration of the processes happening in our inside organs under the influence of chemicals contained in the food. McDonalds’ fast food even turns out to cause addictions. Consuming such products every day is not only harmful, it is also life threatening.
The film presents statistics of obesity level in the USA, general obsession with fast food, large advertisement campaigns and numerous restaurants with harmful meals all over the country. This experiment has brought awareness to the society, knowledge of what is being eaten in enormous portions. Of course, it became highly popular, caused a public reaction, a wave of attempts to sue the fast food companies and gave a push to the appearance of the Cheeseburger Bill.
The article from Fat2Fit suggests that we should simply outlaw the fast food companies that endanger public health (Cheeseburger Bill, 2011). Practically, fast food industry is gigantic, it is indescribably popular, its revenue is enormous.
The mega corporations that are spread all over the world are very well equipped, as it is said in the film “Supersize Me”, these corporations have many really experienced and expensive lobbyists working for them, and these lobbyists have one purpose – not to let the government pass the Acts that are not favorable for the business and income of the corporations, and at the same time help the Acts that work in favor of the corporations go through (“Supersize Me”, 2013).
To my mind, the consumers are helpless in this case; they are simply not a match to such powerful opponent as fast food mega corporations. Logically, the best excuse of all the obese consumers of fast food is useless. It is possible to sue a fast food company for “pushing” their product on the consumers, but it is not the company’s business to count our calories and tell us when we should stop consuming fat and sugar. The choice is and has always been ours.
Reference List
Cheeseburger Bill. (27 Jul, 2011). Fat2Fit.
Villageconsciousness. (2 Jul, 2013). Supersize Me with English Subtitle.