CHANDLER: About Paula Deen and fat jokes
This is about Paula Deen.
And me — and everyone else who considers the scale a weapon of body mass destruction.
Just a couple of recent headlines about Ms. Deen who has revealed that she has Type 2 diabetes.
“Grease under fire.”
“The Southern belle of butter.”
And so on.
I hadn’t experienced problems with weight until I came home to Texas and started teaching in Iraan. My job was a piece of cake. Or pie, especially banana cream or chocolate made by Mrs. Harris.
Plus chips and dips and casseroles. Mrs. McAnally’s chili cheese egg fluff was my favorite.
It wasn’t my fault, you understand.
(Ironic that I had previously lived in Peru, the home of some of the best food known to mankind, and my weight was still under control.)
Go figure. (Poor choice of words in context of weight gain.)
It’s a tender mercy that my name is not in headlines. Of course, I am not a celebrity chef but must remind you that I was my school’s Miss Betty Crocker Future Homemaker of Tomorrow.
And although I don’t have diabetes, I am a strong candidate.
There but for the grace of God go I.
Of the medical indicators for Type 2 diabetes, I can put a check by most of them.
Empathy for Mrs. Deen is apparently at a low point at the moment. Her high calorie cooking is under attack. Hold on — I don’t recall her forcing anyone to follow her recipes. Also everyone is lambasting the three-year delay in her announcement. Hold on again — she admits she was floored by the diagnosis and pleads ignorance. (Maybe.)
But most damning, we’re mad at her because she is making money by working for a company that produces a diabetes drug. No defense on this one although she didn’t invent Southern cooking — or hypocrisy. Maybe we’re all just put out that we can devour the doughnuts she pushes but we can’t produce the dough.
Fat jokes aren’t funny, even for politicians. “It’s time for Gingrich to exit stage right — where there’s a buffet.” Or suggesting that he should take over the bankrupt Twinkies company. (Strange twist — Mr. Gingrich is listed as a public-policy director for Novo-Nordisk, the same company that has employed Mrs. Deen.)
One third of adult Americans are overweight.
We are smart enough to know that overindulgence has painful consequences. One of them is type 2 diabetes, which gets the least understanding and the most criticism.
Dr. Steve Ponder’s columns about diabetes are both practical and compassionate. I read them religiously, hoping for some miracle advice, even though there’s no such thing.
One of the most traumatic moments of my life was taking my father to the emergency room in a state of diabetic coma. Completely unaware of his surroundings, he didn’t know me.
His blood sugar measured the highest the doctor had ever seen. He explained that as blood sugar goes higher, so does the uncontrollable desire to eat and drink.
That’s vicious.
“Schadenfreude” in German is a word appropriate for the reaction to Paula Deen’s diabetes.
The translation is “pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.”
Those who tell or laugh at fat jokes are guilty of schadenfreude, even if they don’t speak German.
