Posted on 03/04/2007 7:15:02 AM PST by Valin
My local liquor store is selling Girl Scout cookies, and last week I chose Thin Mints over gin, thinking myself quite virtuous. Little did I know… According to MeMe Roth, who is the head (and may be the sole member) of National Action Against Obesity:
Girl Scouts have an economic, medical and moral imperative to dump junk food as their $700 million fundraising source….Girl Scout Cookies are high-calorie, high-sugar, high in saturated fat and nearly devoid of nutrition. Using young girls as a front to push millions of cookies onto an already bloated population further exacerbates an alarming [obesity] crisis, no matter how cute the uniforms are.
Could it be true that little girls are selling sin door-to-door in exchange for merit badges?
This strange little Girl-Scouts-cause-obesity trope has been making the rounds for a while now: The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof penned a column during last year's selling season in which he worried about the growing menace of "little girls intent on clogging your arteries and killing you with their sweetness." At least Kristof maintained a semi-satirical tone. He knew that he was proposing something on the silly side: "Actually, it's a pity that Girl Scout cookies are being sold by cherubs," he wrote. "If the sellers were Iranians with turbans and menacing frowns, then the authorities might be more alert to the dangers."
Even before Kristof, a television ad produced by the pro-business Center for Consumer Freedom put a Girl Scout on the stand to demonstrate the absurdity of obesity-related lawsuits. "You make them taste good on purpose, don't you?" a sinister trial lawyer asks a beribboned, beanie-wearing defendant.
But now Roth has done it for real—and with little discernable humor. "I’ve always cringed at young females identifying themselves with baked goods," she says. "And I’m not convinced more cookies makes the world a better place."
But of course, more cookies do make the world a better place—as anyone who has ever had a crunchy, coconut-y, chocolate-dipped Samoa can attest. People buy Girl Scout cookies because they are good cookies for a good cause. Most people buy (and eat) them in moderation, so a boycott isn't changing health outcomes for the vast majority of cookie customers. And as Roth rightly points out, the Girl Scouts rely on the cookies for $700 million in revenue every year, revenue that they are unlikely to be able to replace with other sources—even in the five-year transition time graciously allotted to them by Roth.
More choices don't make people fat, bad choices make people fat. In the case of Girl Scout cookies, more choices could even make you thinner. The Girl Scouts experiment with new flavors every year, and have removed trans fats from this year's batch. The new flavors tend to be low fat or boast some other health conscious modification. A boycott (girlcott?) against all Girl Scout cookies by the most health-conscious segment of consumers is unlikely to encourage more experimentation.
This isn't Roth's first anti-fat publicity stunt. She also hosts the Wedding Gown Challenge, which encourages women to do annual checks to make sure that they still fit into their wedding gowns: "Most women I know commit fraud on their wedding days—they weigh-in for the walk down the aisle with no expectation of maintaining that weight year after year." (When I visited, Google Ads for eating disorder treatments graced the right column of her main page—but, for the record, she also discourages "extreme" pre-wedding dieting.)
Roth's message of personal responsibility, and her use of a boycott rather than a lawsuit or a legislative ban are to be applauded. But she is still on the wrong track. Scapegoating particular foods or companies (remember the lawsuit blaming McDonalds for obesity?) isn't a sensible approach. There isn't a single man, woman, or child in America who thinks that Thin Mints are slimming, name notwithstanding. Adorable salesgirls in knee socks are not tricking buyers or leading them down the garden path, most people just buy a box or two of nostalgic cookies once a year for kicks. They know what they're getting.
And what could be more American than Girl Scout cookies? The scouts have been selling cookies since 1917. Roth says that they "sell up to 200 million boxes yearly—that's about one box for every overweight American." But one box of cookies a year each, for a total of 1,350 calories, isn't too bad—certainly not enough to add an extra roll to anyone's midsection or roll anyone into an early grave.
Actually, there is one thing that's more American than Thin Mints and Trefoils: apple pie. Grandmothers across the nation, beware. Unless you fit into your wedding dress—MeMe Roth could be coming for your pie pans next.
Katherine Mangu-Ward is associate editor at Reason magazine.
Moderation in all things!
I hate GS cookies. Over priced little bitty boxes.
"My local liquor store is selling Girl Scout cookies, and last week I chose Thin Mints over gin..."
Next time buy the gin.
That's because you're a waste of God's good oxygen, MeMe. Please go away and stay there.
Death by Samoas! I could think of worse ways to go.
Pride cometh before the fall, Ms. Roth.
What a boatload of crap.
If people dont want the cookies they dont have to buy them.
Personally I like the Mint ones.
Stay out of my eating habits you dorks. I buy what I want and eat what I want and anybody that doesnt like it can kiss my grits.
oh man! our dog is the cookie monster here. she's sniffed
out just about every box our poor kids have bought and
scarfed them down. the kids keep buying replacement boxes
and finding new hiding spots, but the darned dog is just
too smart.
I have trouble believing that the liquor store is selling Girl Scout cookies. The GSUSA authorities would never allow a booth sale to be held at a liquor store, even if the local statutes allowed minors to be in the area.
However, it's possible that the owner of the store is a GS parent with a garage full of cookies ...
COMMIE! :-)
I cannot believe those cute little girls are cold blooded killers.
Maybe they could sell 'carbon offsets' and the Left will be happy.
That was my plan -- but the Thin Mints I bought yesterday at 10:30 a.m. were gone by 2:00 this morning.
Yeah. The concept of Girl Scout Granola Bars or Girl Scout Rice cakes just doesn't have any real appeal to me.
I'll suffer the health consequences for the cookies. After all, I have another year to address the health risks before temptation comes around again.
"Over priced..."
Not only are they exorbitantly priced, the numbers don't add up. The Girls Scouts can not be making $700 million a year on those sales. The shame of this scam is that a mega-bakery is scamming Girl Scouts into selling that stuff for pennies on the dollar.
Forget the obesity angle and look at the balance sheet of the producer of those cookies.
I'm sure the Girl Scouts would make a lot of money selling organic rice cakes, tofu cookies and macrobiotic wheat crackers.
...from my cold, dead, chubby fingers.
:) What a maroon.
"...make more money..."
I give the local troop the amount of the cookies and decline to order. That way ALL the money goes to the GSA.
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