I recently saw an item on ABC News about a restaurant called the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas. A man suffered some sort of cardiac episode (possibly a heart attack) while eating a 6,000 calorie burger called the Triple Bypass. Jon Basso, the owner of the restaurant - who acknowledges that the food he serves is unhealthy, dangerous, and possibly lethal - seemed remarkably calm about and unmoved by the ordeal. The whole damn story left me feeling unspeakably depressed; it made me want to go out into the fresh air, go for a run, eat an apple, and sigh for society.
What got to me wasn't so much the attitudes of the customers, who seemed amused and intrigued by the place. It's understandable that people would be curious; the joint has a morbid sense of humor about its business: diners wear hospital gowns, the wait staff dresses in nurses' uniforms (the owner dresses like a doctor), there is a weigh-in station where customers clocking in at over 350 lbs. eat free, and now, after this recent episode, customers can eat at the-place-where-that-guy-had-a-heart-attack. No, it doesn't surprise me that people would want to patronize this curiosity. But, what does surprise me, what does get under my skin and tick me off, is the attitude of the the owner. Mr. Basso seems to think this is all good fun, a good-for-business chance happening that will certainly seal the Grill's reputation as a place to get really greasy fast food.
It's all supposed to be really cute, but I'm not laughing. Obesity is a real problem. Think of all the people you know - family members, friends, public figures, politicians, celebrities - who have died of a heart attack or stroke or whose lives have been diminished by heart disease. Think of the all the surgeries, the drugs, the medical bills, the lost time. Am I the only one who finds all this incredibly sad?
And yet, Mr. Basso will have good grounds - certainly legal grounds - to defend his business. "Anything that is legal that you want to eat or drink that's fun, that enriches your life at the moment, I will sell it to you," he said. But, that doesn't cut it. Precisely because he knows just how unhealthy his menu items are, Mr. Basso is faced with an ethical dilemma that reaches beyond the question of legal compliance. His moral argument is that people are responsible for their own food choices.
He is, of course, right, but that doesn't mean he isn't a sleaze. Just because people are ultimately responsible for what they put in their bodies - and they certainly are responsible for that - doesn't mean Mr. Basso is off the hook. In cashing in on America's food problem, he becomes the worst kind of social parasite, someone who is willing to take advantage of the obesity epidemic in America just to make a buck.
Places like the Heart Attack Grill are not the root of the problem (they aren't: one hamburger, even one as big as the Triple Bypass, cannot, on its own, cause a heart attack; and people surely know going in that the food is unhealthy, and yet still they go), but they certainly are not part of the solution. If nothing else, a place like the Heart Attack Grill presents us with manifest proof of a cruel irony: that tragedies like heart attacks are now accepted as commonplace and "normal" when "normal" should mean living a long, full, and healthy life.
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