Paging Dr. Kringle: Mall Santa tells overweight 9-year-old to ‘lay off the burgers and fries’

Paging Dr. Kringle: Mall Santa tells overweight 9-year-old to ‘lay off the burgers and fries’

Now that the family has decided to go public with the story, allow me to play grinch momentarily and say that the kid could stand to lose a couple pounds. So could the mom, judging from her picture.

My intent here is not to perpetuate the family’s agitá over their unpleasant truck with Santa Claus (more on which presently), but merely to point out the findings of report released today by the National Center for Health Statistics, which notes that life expectancy in the U.S. has declined for the first time since 1993. The biggest contributing factor to this trend? Lifestyle diseases:

The overall death rate rose 1.2 percent in 2015, its first uptick since 1999. More than 2.7 million people died, about 45 percent of them from heart disease or cancer.

Diet plays a key role in overall health.

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Having said this, I’d like to turn next to the unnamed man who dressed up as Santa at the mall in Forest City, N.C. and told 9-year-old Anthony Mayse to “lay off the hamburgers and french fries.” The actor was way out of line. No parent takes his child to see Santa in the hopes of receiving a lecture on weight loss.

At the same time, based on the amount of teeth-gnashing the Mayses have done over this, according to ABC affiliate WLOS, I would suggest they need to move on. In addition, if young Anthony is not exggerating when he reports having cried into the night over Santa’s disrespect, he may benefit from some outside help.

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles

Ben Bowles is a freelance writer and regular contributor to "Liberty Unyielding."

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