Scottish Santa Too Fat

That is too funny. I think skinny Santa just would not be right.

Well, there is a large grain of truth in this, but honestly , do we think the line between fiction and reality is that blurred that people will start thinking, "Oh well, Santa is fat,it must be ok if I am too"?

Come to think of it, I'm sure that is quite possible, not much surprises me anymore.

My waist size on the maximum when I was obese was a size 42. I tried low-fat, low carb, low everything.

What I have learned all these years from research is this: It's not the fat, nor the carbs that's making us fat, it's the calories from junk foods.

I had a mediterranian chicken wrap for lunch as part of the "Your Health, your way" as a lunch in the office building with a bowl of fruit. That sandwich alone filled me up, with only 490 calories and about 8 grams of fat, two of it saturated (which is well balanced) It contained 41 grams of protein and only 7 grams of sugar (out of 22 grams of it carbs. That sandwich right there was: 14.75% fat, 33.61% protein, and 51.64% carbohydrates, with only about 4 or 5 percent sugar. On the fat side, it's pretty low, so I had to make up for that by adding nuts for snack.

And also, it's not the meat that's giving us cancer, but it's the junk food. Many people tell us that the meat is what's giving cancer. Americans are eating a massful of pizzas, cakes, ice cream, twinkies, fried hamburgers, and french fries today, which is fried in hydrogenated oils. And the fact that Americans ate 4.5 pounds of trans fats per year is alarming. We should eat 0 pounds of trans fats. 4.5 pounds of trans fats is 16,250 calories worth of unburnable, unusuable energy. Worse off, we are eating so much refined sugar that it ain't funny. And when it comes to 16,250 calories, that's about 5 grams of trans fat per day per person. That's 5 grams too much. How much does it effect cholesterol? It raises cholesterol in the amount of 50 grams of saturated fat a day, while even lowering and inhibiting HDL cholesterol. You also need to take acount that trans fats also scrapes out the nutrients (unlike saturated fats don't), and it raises tryglicerides, C-reactive protein, RBP-4 protein, and it lowers omega-3 fatty acid levels in the bloodstream.

And it's NOT the meat that's giving us heart attacks and diabetes, along with expanded wastelines, it's the junk food laden with trans fats and refined carbohydrates. Look, Eskimos ate a LOT of fish, and people in south africa do eat meat. But they don't suffer from heart disease. The mediterranian people also have some chicken and fish as protein. But what are we eating in America? No, it's not chicken, some steak, eggs, and cheese, but it's actually pizza, burgers, fries, and sugary drinks.

Hey, Santa's "lived" this long, what - hundreds of years? I'm sure he'll outlive all these folks saying he's gotta lose weight and that he's setting a bad example!

BTW - we can thank Coke for making Santa fat - they were the first to introduce a rotund Santa in their advertising...previously, from what I've read he was a pretty normal weight - sometimes even guant - guy!

Yeah, the old style of Santa was an old man that was pretty tall and thin. It's only been recently (last 80-90 years or so) that Santa's even been fat.

Santa is not fat. He is hiding Christmas presents under his coat. Skinny Santa means no presents, kids will not approve. :-)

That was quite a rant, James. I'm guessing you're very protective of your meat meals. The problem with your argument is that you failed to notice the big difference between how much meat Americans eat when compared to people in other nations. And there is a big difference between fish eaten by Inuits and steak eaten by Texans.

James, you win the prize for turning something about Santa into something about yourself. Congrats.

I'll donate the lump of coal, Nic. :-)

Back to the topic, the announcement that Santa can't be jolly AND roly-poly makes me think that fat people have now one more message that says they're not supposed to get any joy out of life. Sheesh!

Ann said:
That was quite a rant, James. I'm guessing you're very protective of your meat meals. The problem with your argument is that you failed to notice the big difference between how much meat Americans eat when compared to people in other nations. And there is a big difference between fish eaten by Inuits and steak eaten by Texans. [...]

Ann, you may want to go look at some of the stats on animal protein (meat/poultry/fish/dairy) consumption - in the US we consume LESS than many other countries that outlive us with less degenerative disease.

Can we Laugh and Cry? :)

Why IS it that a lot of larger folks DO seem jolly?? Any clues anyone?

Pstt - someone needs to tell this scottish newspaper man santa isn't real!

C'mon now. Honestly, when I believed in Santa - ohh, lets say, up to age 6...I didn't even know the term "obesity" or realize any difference in Santa being overweight. Kid's in the santa world don't judge people based on that - and honestly, their parents should be teaching them about eating healthy from examples at home. If anything - Santa teaches a valuable lesson. Eating too many cookies and milk will give you jolly ol' belly that shakes when you laugh like a "bowl full of jelly".

Actually I think you are both right (James and Ann). While I don't think meat is a problem, I think that the cattle fed animal feed is also a kind of "processed food", so to say. Grass-fed is different.

And the "Santa is too fat" people have taken PC to a whole new level of hilarity.

I guess I'll have to enlarge the chimney now!! Just like everything else is being super-sized to accommodate the population 'growth'!

I would find a slimmer Santa sexier. At my age, if you are going to sit on some guys lap and tell him what you want, it would help if he didn't look like he was ready for a major heart attack or an insulin pump. I never associated Santa with "grandfatherly type" as my grandfathers were skinny, active guys who lived long productive lives. They didn't sit around eating pie making some elves do all the work either. The original St. Nicholas was not fat, maybe Santa BECAME fat due to all the milk & cookies Kids left out for him (and the milk was probably full fat)
So who is at fault? Not Santa.

It's all those yummy treats that Mrs. Claus bakes and hanging out with the elves drinking hot chocolate, of course.

... Okay, guy's.... who's going to tell these poor researchers that Santa isn't real?

Seriously, how can we call Santa a poor role model? He's not a real person, but an idea. The idea of giving.. hmm, good... and I'm pretty sure ideas can't have heart attacks.

People need to diffenteriate reality from fiction... if you are a child young enough to think of Santa as a role model, well, your parents are feeding you and responsible for your weight.

There are a lot more worthy causes in weight management for research money to be spent on.

Anyone see "The Santa Clause"? When Scott Calvin was a Skinny Santa, he was a big grouch, yelling at little Sarah that he was "Lactose intolerant" and munching on a celery stick. He came back the next year fatter and much more jolly. Some things just are. And Santa being fat and jolly is one of them.

Passion for Health: "Why IS it that a lot of larger folks DO seem jolly?? Any clues anyone?"

Uh, maybe larger folks are jolly (or not) for the same reasons that smaller folks are? Are you implying that larger folks SHOULDN'T be jolly? A personality that looks at the world and sees things to laugh about is common to many folks -- and that personality doesn't go away based on the amount of calories they consume.

Re larger people appearing to be "jolly", often it's a defense mechanism to cover the fact that they're not happy with who they are.

iFitandHealthy said:
Santa is not fat. He is hiding Christmas presents under his coat. Skinny Santa means no presents, kids will not approve. :-)[...]

Even worse, the kids might think Skinny Santa is coming to steal their presents, walk in skinny, walk out fat :-)

If Santa is going to be seen as a role model that we might start to copy, presumably we will soon see lots of overweight men growing white beards, and buying red suits too?

Let's take a reality check here! A definite sense of humour lacking from Dr Miles I think!!

Quite right, RedPanda. There are probably a very few who really are just jolly and don't care about their weight (or their health!), but they are almost certainly the minority.

I really don't mind whether Santa is skinny or fat, as long as I get my presents! And more importantly... my holiday! =D

Now they're fat-bashing Santa?

The world has gone mad, that's all there is to it.

My siblings and I left Santa eggnog and cookies (even some fruitcake one year), but always made sure we left carrots for the reindeer. Perhaps it would have been better to have given them ALL carrots, but really, what child wants to give careful consideration to Mr. Claus's potential health problems -- and what parent wants to introduce fear of heart attacks into an otherwise festive occasion? Christmas is a break from the ordinary, and having (and sharing with Santa!) a few treats is part of that. I'll worry if my daughter eats eggnog and cookies for full meals year round.

Regina: The US spends more money per capita on health care than any other... yet we have the highest death rates from almost every known PREVENTABLE disease - like, nearly 75% of cancers in this country, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, you name it. These are all preventable diseases.

These diseases are preventable through NUTRITION. Not through medicine, after-the-fact. Medicines do nothing but mask the symptoms, while the individual continues to harm their body, furthering the disease.

Thus, the disease is never helped, slowed or reversed. Not with medicine. Only with prevention - through nutrition. This very American style of dealing with "illnesses" is destroying so many lives. It's ridiculous that Americans would rather live with pills everyday, with their obviously declining health, rather than take the time to take care of their bodies, eat healthy and exercise.

So what if Santa is fat? He's a made-up character!! If this is most American's role model for health - that would explain our deteriorating population. Sad.

Word!! (Except for the Santa role model part.) Actually, there are many good American role models. Too bad 'no one' wants to follow their example. Why?? I'm still working on that one...

this is sad and pathetic.
our society needs some freaking perspective: we keep overanalyzing everything in the impractical hope of finding one thing to pin our problems on. WHY is it so hard to consider the whole picture? It's like wasting an hour trying to find a shortcut for a forty minute route.
I'm not just talking about this whole Santa deal either... though it is ridiculous in and of itself.

thats messed up. and yet funny. santa doesnt need to loose weight. so every one who disses on an imaginary hero for kids...well, get a life. seriously.

this is really good.........thanks.

www.keepsantafat.com

Check it out. Sign the petition. (It's for a good cause)

Man its hard to believe for me that with all the promblems in the world today some stupid person would bring up Santa.....trying to change him....have they not changed enough? and sadly to say not for the better....

Yeah, let's make Santa skinny, as if we haven't already bombarded children with the image of being "thin". I can honestly say that our obesity problem is NOT because of a man that only appears one month out of the year. Maybe we can stop our anorexic and bulimic problem by forcing everyone we put on television to look like they actually eat?

To even entertain the idea of seriously turning a skinny santa into a more appropriate icon is laughable. Our we really buying that he's the issue? America still has a huge racial problem, so can we make Santa black or asian? That should take more consideration then whether or not Santa can fit into a size 10.

Why is this even a discussion? Isn't Santa what we call a "fictional character"? You're going to alter fiction to make it more or less fictionous? Why attack a jolly man that has never posed a problem before, when you've provided real people, like celebrity fit club, for us to look up to?

Here's a plan. How about we all shoot ourselves, and then we wouldn't be compelled to change everything because it doesn't agree with us.

I NOT RIGHT TO MAKE SANTA SKINNY. IT JUST DOES NOT LOOK RIGHT, SANTA LOOKS SICK. GROWN UP PEOPLE. SANTA WAS FAT WHEN I WAS A CHILD AND I'M NOT. STOP PICKING ON SANTA AND STAND BACK AND LOOK AT YOUR SHELF. LEAVE SANTA A LONE

I think all you people who think Santa should be thin have a real identity problem. Do you really believe in Santa? If you do you know he is fat and jolly. If you don't, get a life. Why are we trying to take all the fun out of being a child.

I have a Grand Niece who is at Center for Change in Orem,UT. Check it out. centerforchange.com. Let,s not start another problem by being silly.