Last week southern cooking chef Paula Deen revealed that she had type 2 diabetes, and a backlash (including a recent NYT article by Frank Bruni) ensued. Today, Deen’s publicist of six years quit amid the firestorm. The crux of the public outcry seems to be that Deen had a responsibility to let her fans know that she was paying the consequences for eating her own cooking. Really? Is this what we’ve become? The Girl Scouts haven’t warned me that a single sleeve of Thin Mints (which I can eat in one sitting while watching The Biggest Loser) has over 600 calories. Shame on those cherubic cookie pushers for wreaking havoc on my blood sugar.
Paula Deen doesn’t run a healthy cooking show. We watch her because we want an excuse to indulge. We want to slather ourselves in butter-laden and gravy-rich side dishes. America is obese, and though we’d like to blame it on sneaky fast food chains with their 24-hour drive-thrus and subversive advertising campaigns, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
I don’t trust a skinny chef any more than I’d hand my body over to an overweight personal trainer. I’m aghast, and honestly quite fearful that we’ll start making Emeril divulge his cholesterol levels or have Rachel Ray tell us her body mass index. Do we need Paula Deen to tell us that dishes like one of her favorites, a burger sandwiched between two glazed donuts, might not be good for us? Have we really sunk so far as to attack a woman who has made us tremendously happy giving us recipes we love while she’s in the middle of dealing with a health crisis?
I’ve come to the conclusion that we aren’t really angry with Paula Deen for keeping her health problems from us. Quite the opposite: We’re furious she felt the need to tell us. Just like most of you reading this column, I didn’t want to know there were 600 calories in a sleeve of Thin Mints. But, I’m not going to yell at the ten-year old girl who sold them to me or blame her that I have cellulite. Plain and simple, we don’t want to be reminded that we can’t eat fried chicken and cookies every day because eventually it will kill us. It’s the truth. And it seems to me that Paula Deen’s only transgression was reminding us of it.
Michelle Theall is the former founder and editor-in-chief of Women’s Adventure Magazine. Her adventure travel, environment, health, editorial columns, and sports articles and essays have appeared in national magazines including, Health, UtneReader, Natural Solutions, Alternative Medicine, and 5280. She has also worked for VeloNews, InsideTriathlon, Recording, Dandelion, and Women’s Sports + Fitness magazines.
Great article, Michelle! I do agree that we’re responsible for our own choices and the subsequent consequences. However, my biggest beef with Paula Deen and the way her “coming out” was handled is the obvious priority she gave to money and endorsements over health in general.
She mentioned adding a little exercise to her routine in an interview on the Today Show I saw, but didn’t actually say that her lifestyle may have contributed to her disease. It’s an incredible opportunity for her to help people learn about healthier lifestyles, but instead, she deflects an obvious connection between the disease and what made her famous, and now she’s being paid to endorse a drug. money talks, it seems, a lot louder than integrity.
Well said!
The part of the whole controversy around Paula Deen’s announcements that upset me the most is the body- and food-policing other people seem to think is OK. None of it is OK.
We can have a larger discussion about societal trends, medicine, and general health, but we also have to acknowledge that some people’s body types are prone to be overweight, just as others are prone to be underweight. We’re all individuals and we made our own decisions, and we have our own genes and other underlying factors.
I like to think I eat relatively healthily most of the time, am active, etc. But I love Paula Deen. I wouldn’t cook one of her meals every day, but they’re nice for a treat once in a while.
I agree with Katie. It’s the way she came out…with drug endorsement contract in hand. Monopolizing on the whole charade. She knew her empire was at risk when the world would find out eventually about her diabetes. She has secured her income by the drug endorsement deal. As a health care provider, it’s nauseating.
I love Paula Deen–but I certainly wouldn’t eat her cooking every day. In my opinion, she has never advocated that her food is “healthy”, but that it tastes good (which it probably does!!). If she is receiving money from a pharmaceutical company to “come clean” on having type II diabetes, I guess that’s her decision-hey, we’ve all gotta make a living, right? Frankly, I think anytime a prominent media figure can shed some attention on a common medical condition and bring some awareness to the public, it’s a positive thing, and can serve as a “wake-up call” for others who are at risk. Maybe she could have focused more on her health issues, but she’s made a living as a southern cook who likes to deep fry butter!! She’s no dummy!!