Santa Too Fat to Be a Role Model
The Grinch has left his lair above Whoville and, apparently, moved to Australia, where a team of researchers has determined that Santa is an unhealthy role model for children.
Proving their hearts (which true, may be healthy) are three sizes too small, the team from Australia's Monash University, deduced that countries whose children are encouraged to believe in Santa are also those with higher rates of childhood obesity.
The study, which was published in the British Medical Journal frets that kids may look up to Santa and his bowl full of jelly. The researchers said:
We need to be aware that Santa has an ability to influence people, and especially children, towards unhealthy behavior.
Ho ho oh no.
Among the big guy's crimes are overeating, drinking and driving, speeding, spreading the swine flu, and a sedentary lifestyle. I guess they decided to overlook that whole generosity, giving away free toys, and spreading Christmas cheer part.
The researchers write that Santa should find a more active way to deliver toys. Rather than riding in his sleigh, he could jog around the world or even ride a bike. I suppose he could put a red safety light on his handle bars, but where would he hang his jingle bells? And, those bike baskets, they're way too little to hold all those presents!
Seriously, is this study for real?
The authors compare Santa to Ronald McDonald in that both are highly recognizable characters marketed to kids. But, while Ron is on every street corner selling his high-fat burgers and fries, Santa comes around but once a year and brings Christmas magic and toys. Not quite the same thing.
What do you think, should Santa shape up?
Budai, or the "fat Buddha," has been around for hundreds of years. Statues of him are more numerous than Santa. Has this caused obesity problems in Asia? I don'think so.
ReplySanta isn't what makes people fat! It's diet too rich in refined carbohydrates, fatty meats and fried foods; not enough fruits and vegetables; and a lack of physical activity. We need to be mindful of this year round. Having a treat of Christmas cookies one time a year is not what makes one fat! These people need to leave santa alone and teach children about proper diet and exercise and give people incentives to live healthier lifestyles. Make it a cultural thing.. instead of the cultural movement to eat chips, sit on your butt and watch tv.
ReplyNonsense. Refined carbohydrates, or the others you listed, have nothing to do with gaining weight.
You gain weight by eating more calories than your body needs. Period, end of story.
ReplyThe BMJ paper by Grills and Halyday about Santa Claus was a Christmas edition spoof, a satirical parody written partly just for fun, but also as send up of political correctness on public issues. If you read the paper and couldn't see this, then you need to be seriously concerned about your gullibility.
ReplyFrom what I read on this story, the Christmas issue of BMJ is traditionally a slightly lighter-hearted one, so I suspect this particular study was a little tongue-in-cheek!
I'm sure that junk food advertising, peer pressure, and a sedentary lifestyle are much more to blame for childhood obesity than a traditionally rotund Santa...
ReplySanta is evil!
Sure, he's an obese old guy with a lousy lifestyle, but that's his personal problem.
What is a much bigger problem is what he does to other people, with his seasonal high-carbohydrate disasters like cookies, cakes, pies, chocolates, and hard candies.
Is Santa a paid shill for the sugar industry?
It's time to fire Santa, and replace him with a new holiday symbol, Sally the Salad Lady, with all kinds of healthful salad recipes.
Jim Purdy
ReplyWhat's wrong with a diet high in carbohydrates? I'm so sick of the anti-carb fad/band wagon based on pseudo science and mythology.
ReplyI think this is just a bit overkill. Of course Santa is fat and rides in a sleigh; he has been for hundreds of years. Santa being fat has nothing to do with obesity--people drinking gallons of eggnog, eating tons of cookies and rich food, etc., is a bigger culprit.
Besides, Santa was never really supposed to be super fat-he was always very thin up until the cartoon that a journalist drew that depicted him as being fat.
ReplyI am with you Spectra.. a bit overkill for me! And I really don't think the little kids are thinking about following in his "fat footsteps". Today especially, their thoughts are on toys!
ReplyActually the first incarnations of Santa were all thin. It wasn't until the poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Clement Clarke Moore that Santa was depucted as a fat jolly old man. That poem and the commercial art commissioned by coca cola are responsible for our modern depiction of Santa Claus.
ReplyReally??
ReplyCome on, this is just another lame excuse that we create in order to run away from the real reason we as a culture are getting fatter. Look at it this way, Santa has been 'fat' since there ever was a Sanata and people in the US have only recently gained a serious amount of weight. Geese come on!!!
Is this serious? i mean come on its santa clause he cheers up lots of people. ya so what if he isnt real but it just makes people happy. but now after many years of making children happy now a couple of people start to complain that he is a bad role model. that is bull crap he is not a bad role model and changing the way like riding a bike around or jogging? come on this is stupid. santa has been around long before america became fat. santa isnt telling people to go out to mcdonalds or wendys and eat. christams comes once a year!
ReplyHave we lost the ability to laugh?! Or did the media decide to pick on this article as it was a slow news day? Come on people- lighten up! ( In every sense of the word!)
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