McDonald’s is definitely not the place to go for a well balanced diet; at least not in excessive amounts anyway. That was the message received when U.S. District Judge Robert dismissed a lawsuit against the fast-food giant on Thursday.

The lawsuit was initially filed last summer citing that the food products that were served at the chain led to health problems including heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Sweet dismissed the case on the basis that “legal consequences should not attach to the consumption of fast food unless consumers are unaware of the dangers of eating such food.”

If common sense does not show that deep fried foods, as well as products that consist of 80 percent meat, are not healthy in large amounts, the nutritional facts of a Big Mac (590 calories) available on the McDonald’s official Web site should clarify this rather fast.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Samuel Hirsch, filed the initial lawsuit and plans to amend and re-file the case within a month. Hirsch filed the original suit stating that children have been targeted, and the high fat and cholesterol content is a “toxic kind of thing.”

One of Hirsch’s examples was the case of a 13-year-old boy from New York City. The boy allegedly ate McDonald’s three or four times a week, and now weighs 278 pounds at only 5-feet 4 inches tall.

So the question is, who is at fault here, McDonald’s, or the boy’s parents for allowing him to eat fast food in excessive amounts?

“The law is not intended to protect people from their own excesses,” Sweet commented after dismissing the case. In response to the claim that McDonald’s was negligent when they were marketing “psychologically and physically addictive” products, Sweet said, “Nobody is forced to eat McDonald’s…[or to] super-size their meals.”

With 34 percent of American adults considered overweight and an additional 31 percent in the obese bracket, according to the National Institute of Health, obesity is apparently a problem in the United States. But blaming someone else for their own lack of common sense and self-control, or even suing them for reparations such as in this case, is inexcusable and borders on the asinine.