Jonathan Neman: CEO of Sweetgreen accused of COVID-related 'fat phobia'
The CEO and co-founder of Sweetgreen, a fast, casual restaurant chain that focuses on selling salads, was accused of 'fatphobia' after making suggestions that masks and vaccines won't help the Covid-19 situation at all and that shedding fat and becoming healthier is a better solution. Just to put his comment in perspective, Sweetgreen salads start at $9.95 and cost as much as $14.95, often out of reach to low-income communities who consume cheaper fast food options. Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman had taken to Linkedin to share a post in which he made the connection between obesity and Covid-19 complications in a now-deleted LinkedIn post last Tuesday, on August 31, 2021.
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Controversial online post
Neman wrote in the LinkedIn post, "78% of hospitalizations due to COVID are Obese and Overweight people. Is there an underlying problem that perhaps we have not given enough attention to? Is there another way to think about how we tackle 'healthcare' by addressing the root cause?"
"COVID is here to stay for the foreseeable future," Neman added in his post. "We cannot run away from it and no vaccine nor mask will save us." Neman suggested that instead of focusing on "preventing infections," we should "focus on overall health."
"We have been quick to put in place mask and vaccine mandates but zero conversation on HEALTH MANDATES. All the while we have printed unlimited money to soften the blow the shutdowns have caused to our country," Neman wrote. "What if we focused on the ROOT CAUSE and used this pandemic as a catalyst for creating a healthier future??"
Then offering some possible solutions to the problem of obesity, Neman suggested taxing processed foods and refined sugars "to pay for the impact of the pandemic" or even outlawing "the food that is making us sick." "We clearly have no problem with government overreach on how we live our lives all in the name of 'health,' however we are creating more problems than we are solving," he said. Reports that caught the post before it was deleted noted that some people on the professional networking site accused Neman of "fat phobia" and called his post "incredibly fat-phobic" and "disgusting."
According to the World Health Organization, as of September 1, 634,320 people in the United States have died from Covid-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists obesity among many other medical conditions especially at risk of getting "severely ill" from a Covid-19 infection, resulting in hospitalization. The situation could get fatal.
"This post is disgusting," one commenter wrote. "Yikes, this is incredibly fat-phobic," another person wrote. When one user wrote, "Have you considered how our healthcare system systematically underserves people who are considered to be in those groups?" Neman said the commenter made "some good points" and he didn't intend to be fat-phobic with his post. "We have work to do to make healthy food more accessible and affordable." The sweetgreen chain of restaurants describes itself as "building healthier communities by connecting people to real food". However, the chain, which was started in 2007, has been criticised for being equally, or perhaps even more unhealthy as a Big Mac or less accessible than its claims.