UNC Chapel Hill Christmas PSAs

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“Santa is clearly a mutant.”

Yes, that’s what a UNC-Chapel Hill employee actually says in a Christmas video produced by the school.

“I don’t know if Santa’s ready for the trip or not. There’s this big debate between fitness and fatness. Pretty clearly, Santa is overweight, but the question is how fit is he,” says Professor John Buse on the video. He was 2008 President of the American Diabetes Association, according to his physician profile.

He later adds,
“I think milk and cookies may be an issue but you just need to find out. It could be pies and cakes or it could just be seconds on the Christmas turkey. You know sometimes it’s the woman behind the man that’s part of the problem with the belly. [So] we have to talk to Mrs. Claus.”

Dr. Tim Carey, who directs the University’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, comments

To keep Santa healthy for the future holiday seasons I think working on getting that blood pressure down a little bit and the diet and exercise will really help him out a lot, ‘cause we all need Santa in our lives…

Dr. Jim Evans, who works in both the departments of Medicine and Genetics, calls Santa a “mutant”:

[Santa] has a couple of genetic characteristics that I think would be fascinating and very instructive were we to be able to analyze his DNA. Santa is clearly a mutant. He has to be extraordinarily hardy. He exists at the North Pole and yet he’s able to thrive and he’s able to do what he does with the travel, ecetera. and if we could understand any genetic underpinnings to his generosity, what a wonderful thing, and what a wonderful way of being able to promote that kind of generosity over the whole world.

“I think Santa’s ready for this trip. He’s obviously a robust, active guy. He’s a little bit obese and he could work on that but I think his heart’s ready,” says Dr. Cam Patterson, who has his own laboratory at the MCallister Heart Institute.

The UNC Chapel-Hill Medical News Center Office also put out its own psychoanalysis of the Grinch, as explained by Professor Cynthia Bulik. “If there’s someone in your life who is just really irritable and miserable, and just not getting any joy out of life, you have to wonder whether they might be being challenged by depression,” the school website quotes Professor Bulik. “Reach out and see if some of your friends who are not doing well could use some help.”