by Calorielab
Every year for the past few years some health expert has come out against Santa, saying that the big man is just too big to be a good role model for our children. One year there was even a skinny Santa who refused to wear padding because he didn’t want the kids on his lap to think that being as heavy as Santa is typically portrayed was a good thing.
This year the criticism of the jolly elf comes from Nathan Grills of Monash University in Australia, who says that Santa should start walking instead of relying on his sleigh to get around.
The trouble with Santa
Grills noted in his report in the British Medical Journal that there’s “very high Santa awareness” among young children, but he is a poor role model because of his size, frequent reports of cookie binges and refusal to wear a helmet when he slides down chimneys.
He said there’s a correlation between countries that have Santa as part of their tradition and overweight children, and Santa “is a late adopter of evidence-based behavior change and continues to sport a rotund, sedentary image.”
What’s more, Santa presents a public health nightmare as a potential vector for the spread of colds and flu among children who sit on his lap. (While the report is light-hearted, this is probably a real concern.)
The paper suggests Santa should ditch the cookies and start sharing carrots with the reindeer.
Skinny Santa no help
We’ve noted before that we don’t think a slimming Santa would help kids get the message about healthier eating, mostly because kids understand that he’s not real and therefore shouldn’t be a role model for any sort of behavior.
As we noted a couple of months ago in reference to a British anti-obesity campaign featuring “The Simpsons,” most kids know the difference between stories and reality and know not to take advice from folks who aren’t real. Which is a good thing, or we’d have a lot more kids trying to be superheroes out there.
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