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Who Wants a Svelte Santa?

Friday, November 30th, 2007

Saw the oddest thing at the gym last night. I really wish I had brought my camera, or had a cell phone camera on me. A guy walks in wearing Christmasy-red shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and Santa shoes. He’s sporting a long white beard, a bowl-full-of-jelly-like belly, and pink cheeks. Yep. Dead ringer for good ol’ Santa Clause. At Bally’s. Working out. He chose a treadmill in front of a TV showing the Louisville-Rutgers game. He then spent the next hour working up a sweat–slight incline, and a brisk, mall-walk pace, towel tossed over his right shoulder, the white tails of iPod buds dangling around his neck. This really did happen. It was pretty surreal. Also, Santa is a sweater.

I bring this up because I entirely coincidentally saw this story today, which may well explain the weirdity last night. The U.S. Surgeon General has apparently had enough of fat Santas. You know, for the children and stuff.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 6:37 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Nanny State. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “Who Wants a Svelte Santa?”

  1. #1 |  Tom |  December 1st, 2007 at 8:00 am

    Hmm, If I were President, I’d get rid of the office of Surgeon General. What does this guy do anyways?

  2. #2 |  Ruud |  December 1st, 2007 at 11:13 am

    Are you joking?! Who else would warn us about the dangers of cigarettes?!

  3. #3 |  John Payne |  December 1st, 2007 at 5:41 pm

    There’s no contradiction between Santa having a holly jolly belly and working out. Remember, it’s a sedentary lifestyle that kills far more than being a little rotund–at least according to the evidence we have at present.

    But yeah, it’s sad that our culture has gone so batshit crazy about obesity that the surgeon general. Remember when a svelte santa was just the sign of a loser or degenerate (think Dan Akroyd near the end of Trading Places)? Ah, those were the days.

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