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Among the Lindsay Lohans and the Mary Kates of the world, there’s another American idol corrupting the brains of otherwise healthy children. He’s fat, often a bit tipsy, he eats a lot of cookies and drives recklessly, and to top it off, he has the audacity to be jolly about the whole thing. He’s spreading the popularity of obesity and unhealthy living. Who, you ask, would do such a thing? Chris Kringle, that’s who.
Many doctors and health advisers, namely Nathan Grills of Monash University in Australia, have been discussing the effects that Santa Claus has on children’s perception of healthy living. According to one article:
“In 2007 acting U.S. surgeon general Steven K. Gallson declared that Santa should be thinner. Despite the public outrage, Grills has jumped on the bandwagon. He wants Santa to lose his belly fat (the most dangerous kind), to eat carrots instead of energy-dense cookies and to don a helmet while participating in “extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping.”
Personally, I don’t think I was ever overly influenced by Santa’s health choices. I had an overly active imagination, and paired with the self-reliant naivety of my youngest-child syndrome, it took me a while to catch on that Santa wasn’t real. I think I was about eight or nine when I finally accepted the truth, and I am pretty sure everyone else knew around five or six. But even by nine I wasn’t worldly enough to notice that Santa was fat, drunk or reckless. All I knew is that he brought me presents. However my parents were also relatively thin and fit and made sure I ate fairly healthy as a kid. So I don’t know, maybe this is a nature vs. nurture scenario. Isn’t it up to mom and dad to enforce a healthy lifestyle? I guess it wouldn’t hurt to make Santa ride a bike every known and then and sub some of those sweets with salads. In fact, now that I think about it, he’d be the ideal contestant for the Biggest Loser. I leave you all as the jury. Should Santa get a makeover?
For more information about Santa’s unhealthy lifestyle, click here or here.
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17
Ok, this is totally unrelated but I’m freaked out and don’t know who to ask. My microwave just turned on by itself, I mean like no one went near it and there’s nothing in it and it just started cooking for no apparent reason. WTF? Is this some kind of known issue or do I have Ghosts? I’m freaking. Help!
It’s magic.
Throw in some leftovers and enjoy.
Unplug it, it’s probably an electrical glitch. You might need to replace it. Unplug it when you leave the house, plug it in when you’re home and see if it happens again.
Good idea. It was weird! I was just sitting here reading ZL when my oven just kicked on by itself with nothing in it. That never happened before.
Never trust a guy whose shoes match his belt.
My sister and I used to set out mini-mince pies (for Santa) and raw carrots (for the reindeer) at the bottom of the chimney. So while we may have been fuelling Santa’s (my dad) weight problem, at least the reindeer (also my dad) had a healthy diet!
We put out chocolate for Santa with a glass of milk, always something that my mother liked like a Twix, and the reindeer got carrots which she just put away in the vegetable bin again
OMG
Maybe we should just shoot all overweight people so that no one could possibily think it is socially acceptable to be fat.
Next up to be executed:
- Winne the Pooh
- Big Bird
- Bob the Builder
We’ll show our youth that there is one ONE form of acceptable body image- thin, no matter the cost.
You forgot Barney. Put some leopard print on him and send him to Walmart for some slimfast.
…I don’t know any kids who aspire to be Santa. Were this a fictional character all children wanted to be just like when they grew up, maybe a point could be made, but kids want things FROM Santa, not to BE Santa.
Anyway, the modern image of Santa is more than a hundred years old. Were this ’study’ relevant, wouldn’t childhood obesity have been a problem way before the most recent decades? Hell, I didn’t even realize Santa was drunk, and who equates a SLEIGH PULLED BY MAGIC FLYING REINDEER to a CAR? Even as a toddler, I was pretty aware of the difference. Santa has his magical, unobtainable sleigh that I will never, ever get to drive, Mommy and Daddy have normal cars that I will get to drive when I am older, and just judging by the differences in vehicles, I probably cannot drive the two the same way even if Santa DID let me drive the sleigh.
Santa is a drunk, really? I never got that.
A lot of people put out a glass of sherry or other alcoholic drink for santa so he’d be drinking several thousand units in one night.
I want his job now.
LEAVE BRITN, ER, SANTA ALONE!!
Bloody hell this is well stupid. Santa Claus, Father Christmas or whatever you want to call him eats biscuits, and drinks alcohol, and that’s part of him, what a waste of money on that research.
Didn’t they already do this to the Cookie Monster? They were going to make him eat veggies too, I thought.
In any case, OMG, GET OVER IT. It’s fricken’ Santa Claus; he deserves however many cookies he wants.