This is something I've been pondering for a while.
You'd think Santa would be portrayed as thin and muscular since he has to run around on every roof top in the world, climb down and up millions of chimneys carrying heavy sacks of stuff, all accomplished in under 24 hours.
What Santa must achieve every year is a physical fitness feat that has no equal.
So, given Santa's feats of aerobic and anaerobic prowess, why is jolly St. Nick portrayed as a porker? I have my ideas...
Way back when, everyone knew that carbs made you fat. Grandma knew it, doctors knew it, the whole world knew it. If you were packing on the LBS, you'd skip the strudel, nix the nog and avoid every other desert imaginable. They don't call it a beer belly for nuthin'.
Think of how high Santa's blood sugar and insulin levels must be after eating, I don't know, 77 million cookies and 77 million glasses of milk (give or take a few million). And these days well-meaning moms and dads are probably serving Santa skim milk and Snackwells upping the sugar ante to levels that would put Hostess to shame.
We know obesity can be deadly, or should I say, the health complications that usually come along with obesity can be deadly and debilitating. So if we really love Santa, I propose we swap the evening milk and cookies we serve to him on Christmas Eve for steak and salad. Or maybe a little homemade jerky. After all, Santa needs his protein.
And if St. Nick gets any fatter, no one is going to get any presents even if they have been good little boys and girls!
Just sayin'...
