#Sweetgreen CEO called ‘fat-phobic’ for COVID obesity claims

Jonathan Neman, the CEO of salad chain Sweetgreen, has found himself tossed into controversy after appearing to assert that the “root cause” of the COVID-19 pandemic is obesity and that society should ban certain foods in response. 

“78% of hospitalizations due to COVID are Obese and Overweight people,” Neman began his now-deleted LinkedIn post. “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?”

The article goes on to list three points — that COVID is endemic, that mask and vaccine mandates have been prioritized over “health mandates” and that obesity causing the pandemic should serve as an inspiration to create “a healthier future.”

And what does the leader of this restaurant chain selling $15 salads believe a healthier future involves?

“What if we made the food that is making us sick illegal? What if we taxed processed food and refined sugar to pay for the impact of the pandemic? What if we incentivized health?” he proposed. “Repairing our food system could save us $2 Trillion a year in direct costs ($1T in Healthcare, $1T in Environmental Impact). OUR TIME IS NOW.”

LinkedIn commenters were quick to point out that Neman appears to be shaming overweight individuals, who while indeed more vulnerable to COVID were, for numerous reasons, arguably not its “root cause.”

“Yikes. This is incredibly fat-phobic,” wrote one senior manager of content development and self-reported “fan of Sweetgreen for years” in a comment viewed by The Post before Neman apparently deleted it. 

While Neman responded to acknowledge that the commenter’s criticism made “some good points,” he defended his original post, writing that it “was meant to be a thought-starter on how we could think of health differently (instead of just sickness) and attack the root causes that are killing us beyond the one in the news every day (COVID).”

Twitter users dragged the article even harder.

“Sweetgreen CEO thinks his company’s expensive dry ass salads might help more with the pandemic than vaccines, masks and relief payments,” wrote Vice writer Edward Ongweso Jr., who first reported the post.

“I just ate a donut and I challenge Jonathan Neman to a die-off. First person to die loses. I’m giving him a ten year head start,” tweeted another critic of Sweetgreen, which recently applied for an IPO.

Sweetgreen did not immediately return The Post’s request for comment.