The Rio Olympics kick off next week and, once again, people around the world will be inspired by feats of the highest physical calibre…
…and what will we do to mark the occasion? Crack a can of official Olympic Coca-Cola, chomp on a block of Olympic Cadbury chocolate and loosen the waistband of our Olympic McDonald’s activewear, of course!
Pay attention to the Olympic sponsors and that’s the message you’ll get – that elite athleticism and junk food can coincide. In fact, junk food might even make you more like your heroes!
Which brings us to ask, is it fair game for the biggest Big Food players to fund the Olympics, even if they’re unhealthy? Or does it send the wrong – potentially dangerous – idea, especially to kids? Let’s push off the start block.
Winning them over young.
One of the biggest concerns is that children will see their favourite Olympians chugging Coke and think that’s part of a healthy lifestyle. After all, these are athletes at the top of their game! And they’re not exactly touting veggies.
But this conditioning starts more locally than Rio. Research by Cancer Council NSW showed that eight out of nine food and beverage sponsors of children’s sports programs are unhealthy – and that the kids would like to “return the favour” by buying those products. Our future Olympians are already drinking the junk food Kool-Aid – sorry, Coca-Cola.
Eight out of nine food and beverage sponsors of children’s sports programs are unhealthy.
No balancing act.
But if kids – or adults – are staying active, there’s nothing wrong with a post-soccer Gatorade, right? And if anybody can eat junk foods, it’s Olympians, surely!
The calories-in-calories-out theory is Big Food’s handy scapegoat when these ethical issues are surfaced. But it’s also deeply flawed. Even if you could jog a straight hour to burn off a bottle of Coke, the problem runs deeper than weight gain. Fructose, for example, puts immense pressure on the liver and is linked to serious diseases.
The ads of athletes pounding the pavements – and then a big ol’ burger – mislead us to believe that if you stay active, you can eat anything. (Though funnily enough, McDonald’s have given up trying to convince us that Big Macs are the food of legends – their Olympics ads consist of people lying around in their trackies!)
Not so healthy behind the scenes.
Still, you might think that elite athletes wouldn’t touch the junk they endorse. But, behind the scenes in the Olympic Village, junk food is part of the furniture – literally.
“The first thing athletes notice when arriving at the Olympic Village is the amount of McDonald’s restaurants there are. And it is all free,” says former Olympic rower and founder of Crossing The Line, Gearoid Towey.
“Everywhere you look there are fridges full of free Coke and in every dining hall there are freezers full of free Magnums and other ice creams.”
The landscape hasn’t changed since Gearoid retired in 2008. This week, Aussie swimmer Melanie Wright revealed that in the final days of the competition, it was normal to see athletes ordering 27 cheeseburgers at a time and washing them down with a Diet Coke. Usain Bolt reportedly even ate 1,000 McNuggets during the Beijing Olympics!
“My diet went into sugar shock in a matter of hours. I remember arriving feeling like a machine and leaving feeling like an unhealthy blob once the Olympics were finished,” says Gearoid.
We don’t know about you, but it sounds like the Olympics needs a serious health check!
“I remember arriving feeling like a machine and leaving feeling like an unhealthy blob once the Olympics were finished.”
Going for gold.
For the sake of everyone watching and participating in The Games, we reckon the only good option for junk food sponsorship is disqualification. And it wouldn’t even be a big loss for the OIympics – McDonald’s only accounts for around two per cent of the overall revenue.
And who can sponsor the Olympics instead? What about *drumroll* real food?! Aldi has already proved it’s possible by promoting fresh, healthy food as Team GB’s official supermarket sponsor.
“It would make the athlete’s life easier to give them more opportunities to promote brands that benefit society,” says Gearoid. “It would also allow junk food brands to be what they are – junk food – and not try to be something they aren’t.”
Do you think junk food sponsorship of the Olympics should be banned?
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