Should We Be Worried About Santa?

This was taken from the internet.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus. And he's a public health menace.according to this from internet.

Public health expert says the beloved Christmas icon should ditch his sleigh and start biking or walking to lose his jelly belly.

This light-hearted research was published online Thursday in the annual Christmas issue of the British medical journal BMJ.

After conducting a literature review, there was found... a "very high Santa awareness" among children.it was determined that Santa made a reckless role model, noting his frequent cookie snacks, occasional cigars and refusal to don a helmet during "extreme sports such as roof surfing and chimney jumping."

Santa is a late adopter of evidence-based behavior change and continues to sport a rotund, sedentary image,

There was also found a correlation between countries that celebrate Santa and large numbers of fat children.

Santa promotes a message that obesity is synonymous with cheerfulness and joviality. It was suggested that jolly old Saint Nick should swap his traditional snacks of cookies and milk in favor of sharing carrots with Rudolph.

More disturbingly, Santa's close-up contact with sniffling, coughing kids made him a one-man outbreak waiting to happen, with swine flu the biggest seasonal concern.

Unsuspecting little Johnny gets to sit on Santa's lap, but as well as his present, he gets H1N1 influenza.

The man who wrote the article donned a Santa suit himself - and deemed the experience a public health nightmare. "I was kissed and hugged by snotty-nosed kids at each performance and was never offered alcohol swabs to wipe my rosy cheeks between clients," he wrote.

I read this bit of Christmas humor this morning after driving into town for Christmas coffee with a friend. I was listening to the radio and heard all about "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" being a Christmas song about bullying. Also, Dean Martin's, "Baby It's Cold Outside" being the first song about date rape. Where do they come up with these ideas? I guess it takes all kinds to make up this sometimes crazy world. No matter what some think...Christmas will go on from year to year with little kids singing the Rudolph song and grownups humming along with Dean about a cold night....and our beloved chubby Santa will continue on in his jolly way...kids will continue to tell him what they want for Christmas and then leave him a snack of cookies and some carrots for Rudolph. It's one of our favorite traditions of Christmas...without his belly it wouldn't be the same.

Balisha