The House of Representatives voted 276-139 to ban class-action lawsuits that blame food companies for obesity, a condition now thought to kill more Americans than smoking.

“ ‘Ronald McDonald made me do it’ should never be considered the basis for a lawsuit in the real world,” said Tom DeLay, leader of the Republican majority in Congress. “Fat people should “look in the mirror,” agreed James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican.

Despite widespread support, the Bill may have a rougher ride in the Senate, which has often opposed moves to limit lawsuits and where the Republicans have a slimmer majority. The Bill’s Republican backers said that they were trying to protect an industry that employed 12 million people and which, after the Government, was the largest employer in the country.

Lawsuits of this ilk have so far failed to get through the courts. A federal judge in New York dismissed two cases last year that blamed McDonald’s for making people fat. The White House supported the Bill, saying food manufacturers and sellers should not be held liable for someone else’s “consumption of legal, unadulterated food and a person’s weight gain or obesity”.

Mr DeLay rejoiced at a vote he said would stop lawyers from fattening their wallets and clogging up the system with “self-serving frivolities”. The National Restaurant Association was equally relieved and said the Bill would stop lawyers harming small businesses.

It urged Americans to focus on education about diet and exercise to fight obesity. Critics, mostly Democrats, said it should be left to the courts to decide whether a lawsuit was frivolous.

The US Government is spending tens of millions of dollars trying to convince Americans to adopt a healthy lifestyle and has launched a new advertisement campaign aimed at getting overweight Americans out of their cars and elevators and on to their feet. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report this week saying that, on current trends, obesity was now the leading killer in America.

Two thirds of adults and nine million American children are either overweight or are in the heavier category of obese.

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