Sweetgreen CEO's LinkedIn post connecting Covid deaths to obesity draws backlash – CNBC

Jonathan Neman, co-founder and co-CEO of sweetgreen.David A. Grogan | CNBCSweetgreen CEO and co-founder Jonathan Neman wrote a LinkedIn post Tuesday connecting obesity to the ongoing pandemic, saying “no vaccine nor mask will save us” and proposing taxes on processed food and refined sugar.The post was deleted Wednesday, several hours after Vice published a story about it. Even before Vice’s article, commenters on Neman’s original post were calling his argument “fat-phobic.”Sweetgreen confidentially filed for an initial public offering in June, making this an inopportune time for controversy surrounding the company. Consumer backlash could hurt both its reputation and sales, turning off investors.Neman’s commentary comes as the U.S. battles another wave of new Covid-19 cases, leading some localities to impose vaccination or mask requirements. As of Aug. 31, the seven-day average of daily new U.S. cases reached 160,455, up 6% from a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. Health officials have pointed to the highly contagious delta variant as the culprit, particularly in regions with low vaccination rates.”78% of hospitalizations due to COVID are Obese and Overweight people,” Neman wrote in the post. “Is there an underlying problem that perhaps we have not given enough attention…
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