Washington ? Americans who order fast food would have to hold the lawsuits under a bill passed by the House Wednesday.

The “cheeseburger bill,” approved 276 to 139, would prohibit people who are battling the bulge from going to court in an attempt to finger the food industry for their weight problems. Proponents of the measure said the fed-up well-fed would do better to look in the mirror for the cause of their trouble.

“The gist of this legislation is there should be common sense in the food court, not blaming other people in the legal court,” said Rep. Ric Keller, R-Fla., the bill’s chief sponsor, whose district is home to Darden Restaurants Inc., owner of the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains.

Only a few lawsuits against fast-food giants have been brought so far, and none has been successful. But some plaintiffs’ attorneys say juries soon may be ready to hold an industry that peddles fattening products through ubiquitous advertising — often aimed at children — at least partly liable for the rise in obesity and obesity-related diseases.

Nearly two-thirds of adults and 15 percent of children in the United States are overweight, and Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight-loss products and services, according to federal statistics. The surgeon general has said that the social cost of obesity was about $117 billion a year. And a study released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that obesity could overtake smoking next year as the leading cause of preventable death.

Several of the bill’s opponents, who included most Democrats, said suing fast-food chains probably was not the answer. But banning lawsuits is more about helping a special interest group shore up its bottom line than about shrinking the waistlines of millions of Americans who are at increased risk of heart disease, stroke and hypertension, they said.

Other opponents said the matter was better left to the judicial system, pointing out that the lawsuits the industry so fears have gone nowhere so far.

In the best-known case, a federal judge in New York last year dismissed a lawsuit filed against McDonald’s on behalf of two overweight teenagers that contended the company was hiding the health risks of Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet said it was well-known that fast food contains high levels of potentially harmful ingredients such as fat and salt.