Trim Stacey Irvine is the girl addicted to McDonald’s nuggets – sometimes
STACEY Irvine might be a spokesman for McDonald’s. The 17-year-old is the subject of the Sun story:
15 years on nothing but chicken nuggets – Docs warn Stacey’s fast food diet will kill her
Stacey Irvine has “eaten practically nothing else since the age of TWO“.
Over in the Daily Mail, this story becomes:
Hooked on chicken nuggets: Girl, 17, who has eaten nothing else since age TWO rushed to hospital after collapsing
Back in the Sun, we get:
Horrified doctors learned of the teenager’s chronic 15-year addiction after she collapsed and was rushed to hospital struggling to breathe. Factory worker Stacey, who has never touched greens or fruit, was found to have anaemia and swollen veins in her tongue.
Ooer. Nasty. Is that because she only eats McDonald’s?
Yesterday she was recovering at home after being put on an urgent course of vitamins — which started in hospital with injections. But despite medics begging her to change her diet she STILL cannot get enough of chicken nuggets.
Says Stacey, of Castle Vale, Birmingham, posing for the national press with a nugget poised on her lips:
“I am starting to realise this is really bad for me. McDonald’s chicken nuggets are my favourite. I share 20 with my boyfriend with chips. But I also like KFC and supermarket brands. My main meal is always chicken nuggets every day.”
Hold on a moment. The Daily Mail and Sun headlines are wrong. Stacey has not only eat chicken nuggets for 15 years. Chicken nuggets – cheap protein – is her main mail every day.
Says her mum Evonne, 39, in the national press (was she paid for her story?):
“It breaks my heart to see her eating those damned nuggets. She’s been told in no uncertain terms that she’ll die if she carries on like this. But she says she can’t eat anything else.”
But she does eat other things. The Sun says:
The only variation in Stacey’s diet apart from fries is the occasional slice of toast for breakfast — and CRISPS.
Says Stacey:
“I first tasted chicken nuggets when my mum took me to McDonald’s when I was two. I loved them so much they were all I would eat. I just couldn’t face even trying other foods. Mum gave up giving me anything else years ago.”
The story of the two-year-old who only eats nuggets is – of course – a chance for readers to wallow in that most wondrous and onanistic of tabloid stories: the bad parent.
Exasperated Evonne, a beauty therapist, has two other children — Leo, five, and Ava, three. Both eat healthily.
Does Stacey Irvine eat unhealthily, then?
She once tried starving Stacey to get her to eat more nutritious foods — but to no avail.
Meanwhile her daughter’s craving has sparked another headache — where to store all the free toys and novelties she has collected with her nugget meals. They currently fill four bin bags.
The Mail’s Jillian Gavaghan adds:
Shocked doctors learned of her habit when the factory worker, from Castle Vale, Birmingham, collapsed and was taken to hospital after struggling to breathe.
A habit? As in having a habit, like smoking or picking your nose? Is eating nuggets a habit or a passion?
Gavaghan then delivers a brilliant line, saturated in full-fat prejudice:
Yet, despite a diet that regularly means she eats at least a third more than the 56g of fat recommended by experts, she manages to keep relatively trim.
Hmmmm. Yes, let’s look at her body. It is “relatively” trim.
This may be down to the amount of exercise she does or to her metabolism.
Or maybe the nuggets are good for her?
But the craving is taking a toll on her health.
Not the eating, then. The craving for her next hit of delicious crispy fried chicken…
A lack of vital vitamins and other nutrients – combined with a dangerous amount of salt – can raise blood pressure and weaken the immune system.
Has it? We don’t know. We are not privy to Stacey’s medial records.
It can also lead to an increased risk of heart attacks or strokes, particularly as Miss Irvine gets older.
It can? But it might not.
The Mail then delivers:
HEALTH TIME BOMB: NUGGET (NO) NUTRITION FACTS
A diet based solely on chicken nuggets and fries has dangerous amounts of fat and salt. It also contains few vitamins and other nutrients that are vital for maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
The Mail contacts a woman from a vested interest group who has not treated Stacey:
Dr Sasha Williams, of the British Dietetic Association, said: “Such a limited diet will be low in important nutrients like calcium, fibre, antioxidants and good fats. Parents should never force a child to eat something but always keep offering new foods.”
She was never forced. Who said Stacey was forced fed McDonald’s? And do we know what Stacey likes to drink? Milk shakes. They’re big in calcium. And do antioxidants salve diabetes?
Jillian Gavaghan concludes:
If Miss Irvine were to eat three portions of each in a day she would eat a third more fat and almost double the amount of salt than is recommended.
But she’s doesn’t She has one meal a day of McDonald’s nuggets.
The question is: how did a story about an otherwise fit and firm teenager with a veiny tongue get into the national press? Has it occurred to theSun and the Mail that teenagers get stressed and eat fast food? We’d be keen to know why Stacey Ivine collapsed and was struggling to breathe and if she has some underlying condition…
Posted: 26th, January 2012 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
