Shame on You Paula Deen

When most people heard that Paula Deen has developed Type II diabetes, it was filed promptly in the “No Shit Sherlock” file.  Personally, I figured she’d have The Grabber long before she lived long enough to develop adult-onset diabetes.  She’s been diabetic for three years and only now is announcing the disorder publicly.

The news had special implications for me.  I’ll get to that later.

Ms. Deen is recognized as a Suthern (sic)-Style cook.  Every recipe starts with a stick of butter and all of her concoctions are proudly laden with fat, sugar and salt.  Her signature dish is a hamburger with a fried egg and bacon, using a glazed doughnut as a bun.  Just about everything is fried, including a stick of butter or a piece of cheesecake.

Worse, she emits a bravado that thumbs its nose at health-conscious eating.  She has a persuasive swagger that reinforces the deleterious food habits that drive the obesity epidemic in our country, especially in the 'Merican South where diabetes and obesity threaten the sustainability of state health systems, and butt-block my shortcut through the shit food aisle at Wal-Mart.

Her show should come with a warning label.  If the materials and techniques 

are used precisely as directed, they result in debilitation, disease and death.

And there is no clearer example than the development of her own disease spectrum.  Keep in mind that she is a wealthy television personality with access to the highest quality of medical care that most consumers of her fare will never have.

But the worst is yet to come.  She has known of her disorder, borne from the habits she preaches, for three years.  For three years her attending physicians have likely steered her away from the poisons that she is promoting.  Yet she continues to fill that feed bag and strap it onto the heads of the unknowing viewer with gusto.

Three years later, Deen admits to the disease.  At the same time she also admits that she is the new spokesperson for Victoza, a non-insulin injection that can help control the disease. Victoza sales are over a billion dollars so far. She will be profiting off of the disease that she contributes to. That's like  RJ Reynolds selling you the newest and best emphysema puffer!  Does anyone else see a severe ethical dilemma here? 

Deen should be using her platform to illustrate how diet directly contributes to human health, and show how she can control or reverse her disease with healthy lifestyle choices.  Instead, now she can profit on both ends. Her loyal viewers can still keep eating a stick of butter an a cup of sugar a day because there is a drug that they can buy to help control the effects of eating a stick of butter and a cup of sugar a day-- and she'll be happy to sell it to them.

Why is this story personal?  My mother died one year ago this week from heart disease and complications from diabetes.  She loved watching Paula Deen and extolled much of the same attitude toward food. 

Paula Deen was influential.  My mom never made her recipes that I know of, but Paula Deen absolutely reinforced my mother’s bad habits.  Paula Deen validated the deleterious attitude toward food and tendency to shun healthy eating.

In the two years before my mother died I was at her home and commented on Deen's bad choices while my mom watched her on television.  It fell on deaf ears.  I would sit and watch a Deen (a sick person) on television promote and profit from practices that lead to and exacerbate the diabetic condition, all the while living with undisclosed diabetes.  

Unfortunately the same practices that make Paula Deen rich, fertilized an attitude that made it possible for my mother to not be here now.  Mom never even got to buy the new medicine that could have maybe counteracted the ravages of diabetes brought on my Deen-endorsed lifestyle choices.

Instead of apologizing and acting as an agent of change, Ms. Deen will continue the practices that threaten her life and the health of a nation-- simultaneously profiting from the problem she creates and a solution she promotes.