Methods
Radio stations are again playing upbeatsongs1,2 about Santa Claus this Christ-mas, but media images suggest that this seasonal jolliness may be only superficial. With his predilection for the energy-dense cookies pro-vided by millions of children worldwide, Santa’s apparent weight gain has been chro...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2006
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.542.2748 http://www.cmaj.ca/content/175/12/1563.full.pdf |
| Summary: | Radio stations are again playing upbeatsongs1,2 about Santa Claus this Christ-mas, but media images suggest that this seasonal jolliness may be only superficial. With his predilection for the energy-dense cookies pro-vided by millions of children worldwide, Santa’s apparent weight gain has been chronicled from earlier thinner depictions of St. Nick to his recent characterization as overweight or obese. Santa’s jolly HOHO (Happy, Overweight → Happy, Obese) persona could be at risk. Because obesity is strongly related to poor men-tal health outcomes, such as depression,3,4 and US researchers have concluded that Santa’s “Jolly Fat ” stereotype is likely a myth,5 we ask if we should be singing the “Santa Too Fat Blues” (see Appendix 1 to read the lyrics and listen to the song, avail-able online at www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/175/12/1563/DC1) this Christmas? In particular, we undertook a weighty investiga-tion into why Santa remains jolly, and what might account for his resilience in the face of growing girth. As it is universally acknowledged that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole in Canada,6 we examined prospective Cana-dian population data to explore whether a HAHA (Happy, Active → Healthy, Active lifestyle) factor could balance the HOHO attributes, and whether this in turn might explain why Santa remains upbeat, even if he is not trim. |
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