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FATTY FOOD FIGHT
By JOHN LEHMANN
GRIMACE:
Plaintiff Jazlyn Bradley says that she would "regularly order" the No. 1 Big Mac Meal.
- Chad Rachman

November 21, 2002 --

Super-sized kids - including a 400-pounder - who ate at McDonald's nearly every day sank their teeth into the Golden Arches in court yesterday, claiming they didn't know cheeseburgers and fries would turn them into porky, fat-munching junkies.

The kids' Mac attack is the first case in the United States to be heard by a judge where customers of a hamburger chain are suing because they say the food made them obese and unhealthy.

Lawyer Samuel Hirsch, acting on behalf of eight New York children and their parents, said McDonald's created a national epidemic of fat kids and violated consumer fraud laws by failing to adequately disclose the health effects of its menu.

"It's a very insipid, toxic kind of thing," he said.

The children include 15-year-old Bronx schoolkid Gregory Rhymes, who stands only 5-foot-6 but says he tips the scales at 400 pounds and has diabetes after eating McDonald's nearly every day since he was 6.

"I normally order the Big Mac, fries, ice cream or shake - I like to super-size my orders," the Mac-aholic said in an affidavit.

His mom, Ruth Rhymes, claimed she wouldn't have let her son gorge himself on McDonald's calorie-crammed food if she knew it contain high levels of fat and salt.

"I always believed McDonald's food was healthy for my son," she said in papers filed in Manhattan federal court.

Two of the children, Jazlyn Bradley, 19, who weighs 270 pounds, and her 17-year-old sister, Shakima Bradley, 215 pounds, were sitting in court when McDonald's lawyer Brad Lerman scoffed at the suit, saying, "People don't go to sleep thin and wake up obese."

"The understanding and comprehension of what hamburgers and french fries do has been with us for a long, long time," he said.

Jazlyn Bradley, who's other sister Naisia, 13, is also involved in the suit, said she often ate at McDonald's before school and during lunch breaks.

"I would regularly order either breakfast, the No. 1 Big Mac Meal, the No. 2 meal, chicken nuggets or the fish sandwich," she said in her affidavit.


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