When Krispy Kreme announced it would be offering free donuts, the response on social media was immediate and mixed.
The company is offering a free donut, every day through the end of 2021, to anyone who shows an official COVID-19 vaccination record card.
Many on social media cheered but others were quick to criticize the move that would offer a not-so-healthy choice in exchange for a move designed to protect public health.
Dr. Leana Wen tweeted: “Hey, @KrispyKreme, I love that you want to thank people for getting the #covid19 #vaccine! Every incentive helps & free donuts may help move the needle. However, donuts are a treat that’s not good for health if eaten every day.”
Others chimed in with similar thoughts, including TownHall.
A post on Instagram is titled: Does anyone else notice the hypocrisy?
It goes on to say:
Does anyone else see the hypocrisy here? Did we learn nothing from this pandemic? Sugar and flour dipped in unstable inflammatory omega six fats should not be your reward for getting a vaccine.
Remember...heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity collectively claim the lives of over 1.4 million Americans annually.
We're saddened that THIS is how we begin to come out of this pandemic. Please skip the doughnut and nourish your body with real FOOD.
For clarity — we’re not saying don’t get a vaccine, we’re just saying rewarding that with sugar and inflammatory fats is not the way to go.
But not everyone was so quick to disparage the free donut. Other doctors did weigh in on social media, including Dr. Russell Buhr, a professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at UCLA.
He tweeted: I don’t give one single damn if a free #KrispyKreme donut is the motivation it takes to get you vaccinated. Honestly if you asked me I’d probably buy you one. #Vaccines save lives, donuts are delicious, and as Oscar Wilde said, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
Dr. Buhr talked more with 10TV about his take on the offer. He said it seems a little silly to be upset about a company wanting to reward people for doing something good for public health.
“There’s always a question in healthcare about how we choose to make incentives to do things, and so I can understand that people that mostly work in health promotion that, using a high-fat, high-sugar as a motivator to do something that’s good for your health can maybe rub people the wrong way, but I think I’m also of the school of thought that like, one donut to do something that might save your life and end this pandemic faster, seems like a perfectly reasonable way to make a tradeoff here,” he said.
He pointed out that more people getting the vaccines means helping to get the rates of circulating virus in the community down, with fewer people getting sick. It also means, because of fewer transmissions, the hope is that the virus mutates less frequently, and there is less risk of new variants developing.
“If the promise of a donut is the thing that it takes to have a person have that conversation with their trusted health source, and I hope that those trusted health sources are doctors, nurses, pharmacists, your respiratory therapists, whoever it may be, and not Twitter and Facebook, which are not good places for us to learn about whether a vaccine is safe or effective, that those conversations that you have with your trusted health information source, your trusted health provider, your doctor, your nurse practitioner, physician assistant, whatever it may be, that’s what we want to see happen.”
10TV also reached out to TownHall to follow up on the Instagram post and received the following statement:
We disagree with the Krispy Kreme offering because it is more important than ever to prioritize a healthy lifestyle. Throughout this pandemic, we've seen the data telling us we need to improve the health of our nation, most specifically our diets and lifestyle. Metabolic health played a significant role in the severity of COVID-19, and our mission at TownHall has always been to provide the healthiest options for our guests.
Why we felt we needed to respond: As a brand, we are committed to not only being the healthiest restaurant in the country but also providing education to our guests on our food system and nutrition in general. We are a company that stands for what we believe in.
For anyone asking if we are rising to the occasion to offer free options for our guests, we are. Anyone that downloads our app will receive a free bone broth or coffee upon downloading, and then we reward our guests weekly through free offerings ranging from bone broth to Bulletproof coffee, teas, smoothies, and more.