Ashley Antler, “The Role of Litigation in Combating Obesity Among Poor Urban Minority Youth: A Critical Analysis of Pelman v. McDonald’s Corp.,” Cardozo Journal of Law & Gender, Winter 2009

This student-authored case note discusses the obesity-related class litigation filed in 2002 against McDonald’s Corp. involving named plaintiffs who are urban minority youths. The author contends that, while the proposed class definition includes a much broader population of New York residents, framing such litigation to connect obesity with socioeconomic status and race “could have been a valuable opportunity to reframe the obesity issue to highlight its effect on low-income urban minority youth.”

According to the article, this reframing could have garnered more positive media attention, which could have spurred the environmental changes that the author believes are needed to combat obesity in this population. The article briefly discusses how “tobacco-style” lawsuits can be part of an effective public health strategy, noting “as was the case with tobacco litigation, if the public becomes convinced that urban minority youth are being misled or manipulated by the food industry, then the politics of fast food lawsuits may change.”