The world was a buzz last week with jokes about Paula Deen’s announcement that she, indeed, has diabetes.
After her initial “Today” show interview with Al Roker, it seemed every TV show host, blogger and celebrity came out of their perfect world to poke fun of the charming chef whose southern drawl delights viewers as pounds of butter are emptied into mixing bowls on her popular Food Network shows.
As one of the many, many people who struggles with weight issues, I was appalled at the negative reactions she received.
Diabetes is no laughing matter. It is a very serious health risk and can affect a myriad of people for a variety of reasons. If Deen instead had announced she had a form of cancer, would people have reacted the same way? No.
Instantly, people began pointing their perfect, healthy little fingers at Deen’s recipes. Even a fellow twodaymag writer took issue with Deen’s cooking style.
Why is it easy to make fun of Deen despite a serious health condition? It’s simple — because she’s fat.
Society continues its relentless attack on people who don’t fit some magazine cover photo shoot of rock-hard abs, sexy abs and protein shakes. We’ve got to move away from this constant abuse of ourselves and others around us who struggle with weight issues.
Seeing Deen bashed publicly about her health issue was akin to an elementary bully and his compadres beating up — verbally or physically — a fat kid.
Being thin, eating “right” (whatever that actually means), exercising regularly and doing whatever it is people do to not gain weight doesn’t necessarily equate to a clean slate of health.
News flash: You don’t need to be overweight to get diabetes.
I’m not advocating people snack on Deen’s high-caloric recipes every meal every day. Even Deen, herself, admits that her foods should be considered a treat and not eaten regularly. I highly doubt she sits there at the end of a production shoot finishing off every last bite of her tasty looking casserole dishes. She insists her recipes be eaten in moderation or at the discretion of the individual consuming the meal.
In other words, Deen tells you to be personally responsible for what you’re eating. It’s an odd concept for an on-demand culture that is too consumed with fitting into a media-driven mold than worrying about our health.
Why are we so concerned about calories and exercise anyway? Because after more than a decade of super-size everything in the 1990s and early 2000s, corporate America realized it could make even more money off of products geared at those looking to trim the fat.
So everything from 100-calorie Oreo snack packs to a wide array of hip, trendy and colorful water bottles were marketed for your use after your workout in one of a number of big, bright and loud chain gyms (or is “wellness center” the preferred term these days?).
Even Weight Watchers realized it could earn a bigger profit and has begun marketing to men. Let me not even mention Jillian Michaels selling out to any company she can to catapult herself from NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” It’s cool to be thin because it’s profitable big business.
Look, we all should strive to eat healthier and live a lifestyle where we try to stave off diseases as best we can. I’m by no means suggesting we give up on fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
But remember what I said about moderation and personal responsibility earlier? You can still live a healthy lifestyle and find room in your diet for one of Deen’s recipes every now and then.
And at the end of the day, if you don’t like what’s in Deen’s recipes, by all means, change the damn thing to suit yourself and those you’re feeding. If you’ve managed to adapt your grandmother’s recipes to the modern kitchen, you can do the same with Deen’s foods.
In between bites, though, can you stop treating fat people like second class citizens?
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Well said, Bobby. You are exactly on point with this. As someone who as struggled her whole life with being overweight, I agree that people like me with weight issues truly are treated like second class citizens. We don’t get looked in the eye, we get smiled at alot less and people feel like because our “problem” is “being fat” they can say whatever they want because it’s all our fault.
And I can tell you, even after losing a significant amount of weight, I still get treated badly because I still have a fat ass and flabby arms. And I’m never going to be a size 2.
I’ve resigned myself to the fact that people will always judge me if they see me eating a cookie or drinking a milkshake in public.
And that is a sad reflection on our culture. Americans shame each other when it comes to food (and sex for that matter) in ways unseen in other countries.