Paula Deen. Deep-Fried Cheesecake. Diabetes. Discuss.

Last week, after months (if not years) of speculation, Food Network star, and self-crowned queen of Southern cuisine, Paula Deen made an announcement of her Type 2 diabetes diagnosis – albeit 3 years after her initial diagnosis. Now the fact that a celebrity had decided to withhold news about a life-altering disease is hardly news; some would say it is decidedly within a person’s right to maintain privacy on such matters. Still, considering the nature of what Deen is famous for, a type of cooking predicated on supreme indulgence and high-fat foods, many people have cried foul on Deen’s lengthy silence, as well as her well-timed paid endorsement of a diabetes drug. Anthony Bourdain, another food celebrity and longtime critic of Deen (he has said that Deen, because of her unabashed promotion of highly processed, high fat foods, is “the most dangerous woman in America”) took to Twitter last week and criticized Deen’s decision to turn affliction into drug peddling profit by saying, “Thinking of getting into the leg-breaking business, so I can profitably sell crutches later.”

Deen, who is famous for concoctions like deep-fried chocolate cheesecake, Krispy Kreme bacon and egg burgers, and her unapologetic wielding of slabs of cream cheese and mounds of mayonnaise, has continued to extol the virtues of her buttery, artery-clogging Southern cuisine, but with the aid of Victoza, a noninsulin injectable diabetes medication that she began promoting last week, concurrent with the announcement of her diagnosis. Deen is being paid to spearhead Novo Nordisk’s (the maker of Victoza) upbeat new public-relations campaign, “Diabetes in a New Light,” which advocates using the drug along with eating lighter foods and increasing physical activity. However, when asked on the Today show last week how this diagnosis has changed the way Deen eats, she only made mention of drinking less “sweet tea.”

Paula Deen Makes a Krispy Kreme Burger

While it is fairly easy to condemn Deen with a certain smugness and condescension, we might be missing the point if we lay the blame squarely on the queen of butterfat and bacon grease. Deen, while absolutely contributing to the problem, is not precisely the reason why 1/3 of America is obese and at serious risk of diabetes (she only has herself to blame for her own diagnosis). America has long been riddled with a combination of guilt, entitlement and confusion when it comes to food and nutrition, and while some critics might say it all boils down to personal responsibility and free will, you can’t discount the impact that a well-promoted, relatively-cheap, highly indulgent diet of processed foods has had on our collective well-being. The problem, to a large degree, transcends the simple issue of personal responsibility, and quickly becomes an issue of access, reinforcement, and nutritional ignorance. Food writer Karen Wartman, in writing about this latest Deen development, sees the news as a confluence of a multitude of issues affecting the national health crisis:

“There are three main issues when it comes to the myth of personal responsibility about food choice and they get at the root of our nation’s health crisis: The public’s confusion about nutrition; the lack of time and knowledge about real home cooking; and the promotion of quick fixes like drugs, diet foods, and fads in lieu of addressing underlying causes. The Paula Deen diabetes story manages to hit on every single one of these issues.”

So Paula Deen’s narrative arch, one that used to be about the pleasures of culinary indulgence, has become something larger, something potentially tragic and pointing toward our nation’s significant health and nutrition problems. What is your take on all of this? Is Paula Deen one (unfortunate) person contending with her own choices and declining health, or do you think she should eat her words, mend her ways and apologize to the country for promoting an unhealthy lifestyle? Is her paid endorsement of the aforementioned diabetes medication entirely self-serving and the wrong message to send to America? Is Deen being unfairly scapegoated and blamed for America’s troubles with obesity and diabetes?

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Jennifer W.

6:00AM PST on Feb 13, 2012

interesting thanks, Paula Deen is not to blame for America's obesity, but she could have easily prevented her diabetes

February 13
send a green star

paula e.

7:14AM PST on Feb 2, 2012

My arteries clogged just reading the title. Her food is not the healthiest.

February 2
send a green star

Eileen M.

5:32PM PST on Feb 1, 2012

Diane, I get what you are saying, but I think that people have a personal responsibility and have thought the demonizing of Deen as a bit over the top. I don't watch any of these shows, but if Twiggy was showing how to make salads I would know just by looking at her that she needed to incorporate something with more calories and protein in her diet, the same way that I know that how Deen cooks is not for everyday consumption. I think the Marlboro Man was far more insidious, because for those of us growing up in the years prior to the ban on smoking adverts we could not get away from the ads since they appeared randomly during the evening news or our favorite TV shows, to say nothing of on billboards across the nation. No one is compelled to watch any cooking show, let along follow the advice given.

February 1
send a green star

Diane L.

12:57PM PST on Feb 1, 2012

Eileen M, true to a certain extent, but the point is that Ms. Deen has been promoting an extremely unhealthy cooking style for years and never once was there any "disclaimer" or mention of it being unhealthy. She was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes 3 years ago and didn't disclose that, and I think that is almost akin to "false advertising". Would you watch a cooking show with a super thin model such as Twiggy who prepared let's say, nothing but lettuce and celery and was cold & impersonal? Of course not, but when you watch someone with a huge smile on their face, being all "down home sweet" and coming across like everybody's idea of what they'd want in their Mom, then you do what she does, hoping you'll be just like her. Why do you think they found some guy who exemplified a macho, cowboy-type guy to advertise Marlboro's? Would they have sold them if they had Don Knotts smoking one and coughing his head off?

12:46PM PST on Feb 1, 2012

There seems to be so much misunderstanding about diabetes. Diabetes (type 2) is often caused when the pancreas continues to produce insulin but the body has developed an inability to use it the way it once did. Carbohydrates in any form (not just sugared food) are converted to glucose by the body, which is why it is silly for someone to tweet or report that they have seen a picture of Deen eating cake or the like. From a diabetic standpoint if she ate a baked potato it would be still be converted to glucose and present the same problems, as would white bread or any food with a low glycemic index. When people talk about fat they do not understand that a lot of diabetics are told that if they are going to eat a large apple, which everyone thinks of as a healthy food, that they would be wise to have a little peanut butter at the same time specifically because the fat in peanut butter slows the rise in blood glucose levels. In any event, Deen is not some enemy of the masses. She is a human being who cooked a particular type of food that anyone knows is not healthy if done more than just occasionally.

Lika S.

1:31AM PST on Feb 1, 2012

It's not all about Paula Deen and how she cooks. Only a few people can actually afford to cook the way she does. When we look at the poverty rate and those who are food insecure, it's easy to see why the wrong foods are almost often eaten.

When you only have $50/wk to feed a family of 4, what are you going to buy? An apple and broccoli spear a day for each person? No. You're going to buy potatoes and processed food. Then take away the ability to be able to buy descent shoes to even go walking...

9:44PM PST on Jan 31, 2012

No, Eric........diabetes is a disease from the inability of the pancreas to produce insulin to counteract or convert sugar in the bloodstream. Of course, many who overeat fats also consume too much sugar and are just plain overweight, but there can be thin diabetics as well. There are two types of diabetes, and Type I is often thought to be the "childhood" form, and Type II is from a lousy nutritional lifestyle, lack of exercise, being overweight, etc. Type II doesn't always or even necessarily require the use of insulin, but Type I always does.

January 31
send a green star

Eric S.

8:35AM PST on Jan 31, 2012

People think diabetes is all about sugar, but the saturated fat in meat and dairy appears to be the main culprit:
http://nutritionfacts.org/blog/2012/01/18/paula-deen-diabetes-drug-spokesperson/

8:34AM PST on Jan 31, 2012

Alexandra B.

9:37AM PST on Jan 30, 2012

(cont.)
The food industry is distorted to extent that it is cheaper to buy already prepared food.
Until there are some changes in the industry, there will be no change in the people's weight problems.