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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.
On a Carmel delight high as I type.
I once went to a private dinner with the former CA head of the Girl Scouts - he had a mansion overlooking the ocean in Santa Monica. The cookies are a scam (fundraising) and anybody who buys them are only promoting the GS leftest policies.
Got that right! Last year I accused the little freckled fiend who was forcing me to buy three boxes of putting heroin in them. She grinned and nodded. Her Mom, who was sitting at the card table watching the cashbox, durn near fell off her chair laughing...
I love thin mints and I don't give a damn how bad they are for me. It's no one's business but my own.
That would never fly in Boy Scouts...which is why my sons are scouts and my daughter is in 4-H.
Obviously, you haven't seen the documentary yet.
Go rent Dodgeball, and the sordid truth will out.
I can't even close the jacket on the dress uniform I was wearing when my wife met me (she says that, because I was so attired, she "never had a chance") but she made a pass at me this morning nonetheless.
People whose sex lifes go downhill after they're married aren't doing it right. :-)
Send them to me, I promise to give them a good home!
Now, that pic is an example of how there's no justice in the world. This busybody airhead is actually kind of pretty...and somewhere there's some really smart, caring girl who knows just how to mind her own business, who is as ugly as homemade sin.
SURE leda...blame the dog...If the kids were smart they'd check your breath :)
Had you read the article, you would know that the woman who wrote it is making fun of the idiot who is campaigning against the Girl Scouts.
Hang on a sec while I get a pen..."Note to self: Replace Pack popcorn sale with ammo sales."
Man, they are going to love me as Cubmaster! :-)
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Politics is not all there is to life.
I don't buy the cookies not just because I don't like their taste. (processed saw dust devoid of flavor)
I do not want to support an organization that pushed the political correctness and puts young girls at the risk of sexual predators in their ranks.
Although I do gladly give to the boy scouts when they do their local fund raisers.
Girl Scouts sell cookies and Boy Scouts sell popcorn. That's the way God intended the world to be.
You are much more informed than I. I am just a skeptic by nature. What is the GSA cut per box?
After calling the Director of the Kenosha Girl Scout Council, she stated that the Scouts get forty cents a box. The numbers concerning the cookie program are all over the map. Something is amiss, but I old enough to know a lot of money can be made in a non-profit orginaziation.
No kidding! I bought my husband a box of Girl Scout Cookies just last night, LOL! I still know the way to his heart. ;)
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