Earlier this week, Canada welcomed a new hero into its hearts. Not only the winner of our first gold medal during these Olympics, but the winner of the first Olympic gold ever won by a Canadian on Canadian soil, and a genuine good human being too. Alexandre Bilodeau is just the type of person I would like my kids to look up to. Not because sports are super special and sports heroes are better than anyone else, but because he had goals, he worked hard, and he achieved them all while being a great family guy and talking genuinely about how his older brother with cerebral palsy is his inspiration.
Until…
Hours after winning his gold medal, Bilodeau headed off to McDonald’s. Almost everyone eats fast food now and again. I get that. We do too. But when I’m trying to convince my kids that McDonald’s is not good for you, that fast food will make you sick if you eat it too often, they get to see their Olympic heroes smiling and talking about how great McDonald’s is and how much they love it. Mommy isn’t an Olympian. If I want to achieve something big like those Olympians, I’d better listen to them instead of listening to Mommy. I’d like to say my kids are smarter than that, but who am I kidding? They are five and almost three. Advertising works on them. If the TV says they must have it, they believe it. If an Olympic gold medalist says they must have it, they REALLY must have it.
It isn’t just Bilodeau. Check out Cindy Klassen, yes the one wins lots of medals and who flew back anxiously from competition in Europe to be with her sister who had been in a horrible accident. Again, the ability to win and the human element. Just what McDonald’s wants. Just what any sponsor would want. Take a look at this video where Klassen and other Canadian olympians talk about how they eat Egg McMuffins and McDonald’s Fries “every chance they get”.
Peddling junk to our kids
Our children are increasingly obese and ingesting dangerous amounts of sodium. The processed foods and fast food industries are largely to blame. The last thing I need, any of us need, is for our children to be convinced by their heroes that McDonald’s fries will help them become a sports star.
In his column in today’s Ottawa Citizen, “Not lovin’ Olympic junk-food peddlers“, Dan Gardiner wrote:
Governments give public money to the Olympics, in part to encourage healthy lifestyles, and this money helps make the Olympics a brand so powerful that McDonald’s and Coca Cola pay to associate themselves with it in order to strengthen their own brands and improve sales of junk that contributes to the spiralling rates of obesity and obesity-related diseases which governments are fighting by spending large and growing amounts of money on, among other things, the Olympics.
If public policy were a competitive sport, this performance would not own the podium.
A British Columbia pediatrician also strongly criticized the association between junk food firms and the Olympic Games. According to a CBC article, “MD critical of Coke’s Olympic sponsorship” :
The Olympics might promote physical activity among young people but that does not make up for the potential harm of too many sweet drinks and too much fast food, according to Dr. Tom Warshawski.
“The nutritional damage so much of their products probably do outweighs or exceeds the good things that happen in terms of physical activity,” Warshawski told CBC News Tuesday.
It is not only seasoned journalists and medical doctors that are making this argument. In a blog post for the Good Food Revolution, 12 year old Hanna Stein writes:
Any athlete training for the Olympic games could never risk eating a diet consisting of fast food. (ie. McDonald’s). They have to stay on a strict diet to keep their weight perfect for training and competition. There is no way they are living up to the things they are telling us from the televisions all over the world that they value McDonalds as a nutritious meal. Who could possibly be proud to say you value a way of eating that is not possible for an athletic when we suspect it is simply for the money they obtain through endorsements. Where is the dignity and pride that we want to see in all of our Canadian athletes that are representing Canada itself at the Olympic games? McDonalds presents a false value to our youth in telling us that a McDonald’s meal is nutritious and a substitute for real food. This can potentially have a long-term impact on the health of our future generation.
She rightly questions the government for allowing McDonald’s to be a major sponsor of the games, given how much taxpayers are paying for these games and the fact that Canadians should be able to expect our taxes to benefit our country and positively reflect on our identity. Instead, we are telling the world that we love junk.
Where are our farmers?
Where are the agricultural marketing boards in all of this? Why aren’t the taxpayer supported organizations that exist to promote Canadian farmers and their products, the ones who sell real food, stepping up to sponsor Olympic athletes? Why isn’t the government helping those types of sponsorships to take place. Not only are Canadians eating the wrong things, but our farmers are also struggling financially. The Olympic Games could have been a huge opportunity to showcase Canada’s food to the world and to see athletes supporting healthy eating habits.
It turns out one of the agricultural marketing boards is supporting a few Olympians. The Egg Farmers of Canada are sponsoring female hockey players Hayley Wickenheiser and Kim St-Pierre (thank you to Brian Rice from Processing Politics for letting me know):
Egg Farmers of Canada is proud to support Olympic and World Champions Hayley Wickenheiser and Kim St-Pierre. As the official nutritional partner of Team Canada, we know that athletes need energy to perform at their best. Eggs are packed with 6 grams of the highest quality protein giving our athletes the energy they need before a game. To perform at your best, start your day with a gold medal breakfast!
I’ll take my eggs without a side of McMuffin, thank you. I’m glad to see the egg farmers supporting our olympians, but wish it was higher profile and wish there were a lot more sponsorships and advertising spots featuring partnerships between Canadian farm products and Canadian olympians.
But…big profits = big money to spend on sponsoring athletes = even bigger profits. No profits = no money for sponsoring athletes = bankruptcy. This is a dangerous cycle. The government needs to step in to help our farmers, help our athletes and help our kids. If they don’t do it now, they’ll be shelling out the money on health care costs anyway.
{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
glad it’s not just me that winces whenever a fast food olympic sponsorship promo flashes across the screen. healthy eating it is not.
and, although it has been removed from the banned substance list, caffeine as found in coke is being scrutinised as per anti-doping regulations performance enhancement.
although i’m enjoying the olympic spirit and enthusiasm in my locale, the fast food sponsorship really does hammer home to me how false the olympic spirit actually is.
which is a real shame for the athletes out there
Sigh. I agree totally.
I’m really enjoying introducing my little kids to the Olympics on T.V. but wish it didn’t involve any fast food ads.
It seems whenever an athlete partakes of the McDonalds kiosk in the Olympic Village it sparks a handful of “cute” press items. But I bet way more athletes shun that kiosk, and most of them would probably be very happy to talk to the press about how essential nutrition is to their training. But no one is asking.
Agreed! As Betsy says above, most athletes would probably baulk at the thought of eating or being sponsored by fast food chains, their bodies are their livelihoods and they more than anyone know how important it is to put the right things into it, but it only takes one to have enough cash waved in their face doesn’t it?
So annoying and counter productive to have adds like these in the middle of such a world class sporting event.
It’s a strange thing. As much as we want to believe that an athlete succeeds in the way they do because they make the healthy eating choices we are all encouraged to make, and so an endorsement of a fast food chain rings false to our ears, many athletes do actually eat crap.
Now, it’s not like their diet consists entirely of junk. But depending on the sport, and the kind of performance you need to get out of your body in training and competition, you can not only get away with eating fast food, but you are encouraged to eat whatever it takes to get your caloric intake up. So, 7000 calories a day while in training means, yeah, McDonalds gets some of their money. Their nutritionists don’t tell them to go eat a Big Mac for lunch, but they aren’t on the strict kind of diet we’d think a professional athlete should be on from our armchairs at home.
Also, they’re 20. Jesus. When I was 20 I could eat three Big Macs a day and not put on weight. And I wasn’t an athlete.
Now, some sports DO require pretty strict diets. Hockey players can’t afford to eat crap. Lean protein and carbohydrates. You see a lot of protein powder mixed into yoghurt, tilapia, chicken, vegetables. Michael Phelps, swimming all day? He can and does eat crap. Diner food. High calories in short periods of time.
So, I guess watch out for hockey players doing McDonalds commercials. Those are guaranteed to be bullshit.
Backpacking Dad:
Those are good points, but I still don’t want them pitching that crap to my kids. Because my kids are not burning 7,000 calories a day.
High School wrestlers are also apparently on very strict diets . . . because weight for high school wrestlers is like a game of blackjack; you want to get as close to the top of your weight class as possible without going over and being the scrawniest guy in the NEXT weight class.
But overall, in life and in sports where weight obsession is not part of the game, food is not poison . . . not even bad, evil foods (and since when did foods gain a moral dimension?) that nobody should eat without feeling ashamed.
Sheesh. What disordered attitudes we have, when it comes to eating and feeding!
The sponsors subsidize the costs of the Olympics. Plus these young athletes are just trying to a make a buck because their prime won’t last long and they aren’t in premier sports.
I don’t really care what Olympic athletes eat or don’t eat. I think that marketing to children is deplorable, and marketing unhealthy food that will lead to lifelong health problems when consumed inappropriately just makes it all the worse. And make no mistake, the marketers are absolutely doing it deliberately. Their goal is to sell more of their product, not ensure that my kid eats a healthy diet and consumes junk food in moderation. This is one reason I’m glad that we don’t have a TV anymore – my kids don’t get the same marketing messages.
The problem with the food industry, as I see it, is that the real money is in making processed food products. When you sell a single potato for pennies, but a bag of potato chips for dollars, it’s not hard to see why farmers can’t afford expensive sponsorships. They’re getting a ridiculously small percentage of our food dollars. The good news is that by educating ourselves and changing our buying habits we can vote with our dollars and effect change. It’s why I shop at farmer’s markets or buy locally-produced products from small, local stores whenever possible. We are the consumers, and if enough people opt out of processed food the marketers will follow us, because we hold the ultimate power.
We went to watch the Torch relay on our street and the first thng you see before the torch arrives is a huge Coca-cola truck… The poor torch bearer is hardly noticeable amongst all the commercial trucks!!
Speaking of sodium, am I the only one to have notices that the teething biscuits Baby mum mum that everybody recommends (and that are even on the shelves of organic food stores) contain 15mg of sodium for two biscuits??? That’s a hell lot of sodium for a little one. No wonder they love McDonalds after being used to salt so early on…
Watching those ads made me want McDonalds.
In Alexandre Bilodeau’s defense, government’s funding of sports in Canada is extremely low and has been repeatedly cut by the conservative government. We expect our athletes to win gold medals and represent Canada in poverty. It takes money to train and Winter sports in particular are extremely expensive. Rather than directing animosity at Alexandre Bilodeau, I think that vitriol would be better aimed at Harper for his repeated refusal to understand the ways in which sports plays in an important role in the life of Canadians. Bilodeau is simply trying to survive within the system and I think that instead of charging the individual we should be looking to demand systemic change. As a Canadian, we already know that he will get less endorsements than an American. Simply representing Canada rather than the US will cost him millions. How much more money do we expect him to turn his back on when we are not paying his rent or food?
Renee:
Much of my vitriol (both in this post and in life in general) is aimed at the Harper government and at the processed food/fast food industry. However, in this case I do think athletes are both enabling and reinforcing the bad behaviour of industry.
There are numerous other sponsors of Canadian Olympians and Olympic teams that are not trying to sell unhealthy food to our kids. A lot of them have nothing to do with kids or food at all. While I recognize that funding of sports is low and that our athletes need sponsorship to be able to compete at this level, I wonder who else came knocking? Did Bilodeau choose McDonald’s because it was the highest bidder or because no one else offered anything? If it was the highest bidder, by how much? Enough to be worth it?
A friend of mine was offered the opportunity to triple her salary to go and work for a company that sells an unethical product. She certainly would have been able to afford things with that job that she cannot now. But it wasn’t worth it to her. It wouldn’t be worth it to me either.
We haven’t watched the Olympics yet (shame), but my kids are huge X Games fans. It bugs me to see a guy being interviewed, sweat rolling off of him, drinking a soda. I tell my kids that they need water to rehydrate, then they see an athlete they love sucking down a Mountain Dew. Mixed messages indeed. (Not that I think a skateboarder has to be in the same shape as an Olympic athlete, but still – humans need water and real food for maximum health.)
Wow. It makes me want to pluck out my eyelashes when I see these athletes – who have an OBVIOUS responsibility as social role models – selling their souls to corporate monsters for a few bucks. I’m sure they’re under pressure from managers, agents, coaches, etc. But still… Don’t they have a backbone, and can’t they find a more ethical organization to fund their efforts? Is ANYTHING sacred nowadays?
To be honest, I’d much rather see Canada get out of the Olympics business ENTIRELY. The ridiculous amounts of money spent on this elitist classist spectacle has come directly from public monies which should be spent to meet our obligations to our own citizens. We have a massive housing crisis in Canada, we are the ONLY western nation that relies so entirely on the market to provide housing for all it’s citizens. The situation is severe enough that The United Nations is fervently chastising us. They have also noted the fact that the Olmpics have led directly to many of the poorest Canadians losing the very modest housing that they did have. Despite the efforts of U.N. Special Rapporteur Millon Kothari to prevent the worst abuses so typical of every celebration of the Olympics, still, the poorest peoples are suffering. East Vancouver is NOT celebrating the medals!
If we want to spend public monies to improve the physical activity levels and health of Canadians, the Olympics is the WORST place to put that money. Gym classes in school have been cut, and yet we have mega-million ski jumps that are only accessible to those with the economic wherewithal to master an extremely expensive sport, downhill skiiing. Skating takes lessons, hockey takes gear, bobsleddingg, luge, on and on, a list of sports that almost NO-ONE can afford to be involved in! Free Soccer for inner-city youth would be a better use of sports monies! And if we want to improve the health of Canadians, ensuring that ALL Canadian Mothers can afford to take a full year off from work to breastfeed their children, and requiring that all doctors, nurses and hospitals are fully educated in and supportive of breastfeeding would give us the biggest long-term bang for our buck.
If we want to ensure decent nutrition, then fully supporting our farmers is the way to go, but not by having them spend their money on athletes! If we want our children to eat healthy fresh meals, why not institute a free healthy lunch program in schools? We WILL pay for the childhood obesity epidemic one way or another, why not pay for PREVENTING it from getting worse. How many bowls of vegetable soup could we put in front of school kids for the cost of a ski-jump I wonder?
Frankly, there is NO way to redeem the Olympics, but at least when McDonalds rakes in the dough, we can really SEE the truth.
I agree with all you have said, but I also remember Hayley Wickenheiser promoting Hamburger Helper on TV as something healthy for her and her family. That commercial made me lose an awful lot of respect that I had for her.
Finola:
Ugh…I hadn’t seen that. In any case, I used the Wickenheiser example not to say that Wickenheiser is better than the others, but to say that I wish there was a way for more of the agricultural marketing boards to support athletes.
I remember that one too! Not only did I lose respect for her for marketing Hamburger Helper as a healthy family dinner, but also marketing the societal illusion that all families are heterosexual since she was sitting down to the table with a man — not her long-term lesbian partner.
I’m wrong here. Wickenheiser has a male partner, not female. Just double-checked in her online bio.
Here is the Hamburger Helper ad, if anyone’s interested:
http://www.zootreview.com/CAN/Review.asp?id=463
I’d much rather my kids emulate an Olympic athlete than some of the other less than stellar celebrities out there. Even if they sometimes eat at McDonalds. And as Scotty Lago and Michael Phelps have shown us, they aren’t perfect. Sometimes they do really dumb stuff.
I’m in the USA, but sometimes I feel like the advertising never stops. It’s the Chick-Fil-A half time show at the Super Bowl. The stadium in my city is named, not for one of the best football players ever, Johnny Unitas, but after a bank because they coughed up the most amount of money. Sometimes I feel seriously annoyed at how much everything is about money.
However, having accepted that advertising is not going to go away, I have started to use it as a tool to teach to weigh their options and make good choices. Michael Phelps does ads for Subway and Joe Flacco for Pizza Hut, but Mike and Joe didn’t get where they are by eating only Subway and Pizza Hut. I hope that by teaching them that McDonalds isn’t health food just because the US Olympic team says so, they’ll be able to turn that into questioning the motives of the most popular girl at school, etc.
Kayris:
I agree that in absence of a better ethical framework for all involved, we have to turn the advertising around and use it as a teachable. My five year old certainly already knows why we don’t buy Kit Kats.
As I watch the Olympics, I cringe every time I see the McDonald’s commercials featuring Olympians. Simply put, I believe it is completely irresponsible for these athletes to peddle junk food and they should be ashamed that greed has clouded their better judgment.
I have a 2 year old who doesn’t even know what fast food tastes like (and I hope he doesn’t know for a very long time). I want him to eventually look up to these incredible athletes as role models for excellent health and fitness. I wonder how this can be done as they proudly shove greasy fries and chicken nuggets in their mouths, as if to say that junk food is the best way to fuel their bodies. It’s gross, misleading, and wrong.
Really irks me too. We also indulge in fast food at times but with all of us being vegetarian it does make it easier as we always have to read labels and check what is in it. I am a little more liberal with what I put in my tummy than I am with my kids. I consider it tantamount to abuse to put crap in a child’s body as they have no idea what is good or bad for them and have no choice. Since my almost 5 year old is a steady reader I have her reading labels and have taught her to notice all the FDC coloring etc. It bugs me to no end that role models don’t use their amazing power to help imbibe these lessons too.
Maybe it is the “fun” part in fast food that appeals to the star athlete after a stressful experience of competing in the Olympics. Maybe they just want an escape for a while. However the message they send out, perhaps not deliberately, is that junk food is just fine and you can even have it all the time. I think parents have to keep reinforcing the right message, not only by putting this kind of marketing in perspective, but also by being a role model. Not an easy job these days!
The other thing to remember, especially for people who are in stressful circumstances a long way from home, is that McDonald’s is predictable food. Maybe a Big Mac is nowhere near as nice as their mom’s chicken casserole with vegetables and rice . . . but a Big Mac always tastes the way you expect a Big Mac to taste, while even if you spend the time to find a lovely local place that serves chicken casserole with vegetables and rice, it won’t taste like MOM’S (or your personal standard) chicken casserole with vegetables and rice, which means that on some level it will taste wrong to you.
The more stress one is under, the more one wants to cut out non-essential stressors. Sure, dinner not tasting the way you expect is a minor stressor, but it’s one that can be eliminated easily, especially with mega-chains like McD’s.
Bookwyrm:
Yes, that desire for the familiar is easy to fall into. I am not an athlete, but after a very stressful day on my first day living in Germany as an exchange student, on my own, barely speaking the language, and not having slept all night (overnight flight), I did flee to McDonald’s for dinner after realizing that the grocery stores had all closed at noon (it was Saturday and everything in Germany closed at noon on Saturday for the weekend back then).
But that was an exception when I was caught off guard and completely overwhelmed by the situation. Six months later when I left on a two month backpacking tour of Europe, I swore that I would not go into a North American fast food chain once on my entire trip because I knew it would be too easy to use the excuse of “OMG I don’t understand anything” or “OMG I’m so tired” to just pop into Burger King, McDonald’s, KFC, etc. all the time and miss out on the cultural experiences in the process.
One way or another, even though I did seek out McDonald’s because it was comfortable and familiar, I still wouldn’t go on national television telling kids who look up to me how I “eat at McDonald’s every chance I get.” There is a difference, IMO, between the choices we make in our personal lives (whether freely or under duress) and having your name and face associated with the promotion of a brand.
I’ve been bugged by McDonald’s sponsorship of the Olympics, too.
I’ve also been bothered by the P & G (Proctor & Gamble) “proud sponsor of moms” commercials. But that is a whole other ball of sexist blech.
I’ve raised 3 kids, 2 Marines—and very healthy—-and a nurse, who also eats well. Sorry to say, I solved a good deal of this problem by raising my kids without a TV in the home. I’ve found that the constant presence of TV is the single most defining factor in unhealthy eating.
That said, my kids ate McDonalds. Not often, we didn’t have the money….but I worked full-time, was a single parent, and lo and behold, sometimes it made my life easier. Making something completely taboo makes it desireable, and the day is coming when you canNOT control your children’s choices, try as you might. Think now about less parental control and more self-control for your children.
BTW—a neat trick for peace in the grocery store? Park your (reading) kids in the cereal aisle and tell them they can have any cereal that doesn’t have sugar in the first 3 ingredients….45 minutes peace to finish shopping…
Making something completely taboo makes it desireable,
Such as not allowing TV in the house? I apologize for the snark, but not owning a television is a personal choice not everyone wants to make for various reasons. We can be critical of tv ads and programming and still find having a television valid choice for entertainment (such as watching the olympics) and education. McDonald’s ads are seen in lots of other places besides on tv, so the critique of them sponsoring athletes stands regardless of the medium.
Never told them they couldn’t watch TV. We just didn’t have one….there were books instead. Actually based on the fact that TV drives me nuts, not a major ideological statement.
Didn’t really read to them either. One story a night. Period. I was tired. They all read by 4, and still do……
One of my friends taught her 4yr old that commercial are just people trying to trick you into buying stuff you don’t need. I thought it was brilliant, and she seemed to really get it.
I mentioned this post to my husband, and his take is that this was a another such teachable moment, about sponsorship and how famous people will say a lot of things b/c they get paid to, but they don’t necessarily DO those things.
It sucks that athletes advertise for McDonalds and other junk foods. Unfortunately, that’s the way things are today. But, we can teach our kids the real motivating factors behind these ads, so they can learn to see through them.
Marcy:
I love that approach in general – i.e. teaching a 4 year old that commercials are people trying to trick you into buying stuff you don’t need. However, when it is their “hero” doing it, that’s got to be a pretty harsh lesson to learn. Sigh.
I haven’t really been partaking in this Olympic hoopla, partly because I don’t have a tv and partly because I’m a former Vancouverite (I’ll spare you the diatribe).
I did watch the Opening Ceremonies at a friend’s house and it was the first I saw any of the commercials. I haven’t seen any commercials in about 7 years, since getting rid of our tv. I was shocked (!) to see that McDonald’s was the “official restaurant” of the games. I didn’t even know that McDonald’s was still popular, honestly – where have I been eh? – but really, it seemed so ’80s to see McDonald’s as official anything. Yes, Calgary in ’88 – I get it. But now? Still? Can we even consider McDonald’s a restaurant?
Ugh. It makes no sense, elite athletes promoting food that is so unhealthy. But this brings me back to my diatribe about the Olympics so I’ll wrap this up.
I agree with you about the message this is sending. But I have to call BS on the idea that athletes can’t eat junk food – when you’re burning a jillion calories a day training for your sport, a cheeseburger or two is just more fuel for the fire. (Last olympics, a number got thrown around a lot that Michael Phelps was eating 12,000 calories on his hard training days. I think his average day was about half of that, but still, that’s 3 “normal” people’s worth.)
Not that it matters – that’s not the message young kids are hearing. They see the cool guy endorsing something they can buy (or beg their parents to buy) so why not? The olympics are so well-respected in themselves that every company wants it to rub off on them.
So glad to have a DVR so that what few parts of the Olympics we have watched have only had minimal commercials. What an example for kids!
One of the best things I was able to do for my oldest was not teach her about fast food until she learned about it in preschool. Saved lots of money and kept her into healthy foods. Kid #2 learned about it rather sooner due to big sister, of course. But it’s still a rare treat.
I’ve tried hard to get my kids to understand that commercials are about tricking you into thinking you need something you don’t. It hasn’t worked perfectly for my kids but every here and there they get it.
This is so sad. It reminds me of the Benson and Hedges sponsorship of cultural events. Also not appropriate in my opinion, but when you really need money where do you go? Our natural product companies and farmers just don’t have enough money!
You don’t want your kids to eat McDonald’s, don’t buy it for them. Sure, one day they’ll be old enough to buy it for themselves, but by that point they’ll have a good background of healthy eating habits to build on. People market all kinds of crap I disagree with but it’s my job as a parent to monitor what my kid eats, wears, plays with, reads, etc. My son is only 20 months but I like to think I will be able to teach him that athletes are just people with a talent doing a job, not “heroes” to be emulated. Marketing junk to kids sucks, but so does having everything in our lives controlled by the government. If they don’t see athletes eating McDonald’s they will still see friends and other people they know eating it, which probably influences them a lot more than a 30-second commercial. Just my two cents.
I’m from the US but agree completely. Turns my stomach actually.
Steph
PS to the parents that feed their kid only the good stuff and think they won’t be affected by 30 second commercials… JUST WAIT. Because of this I try to limit as much as humanly possible any TV commercial watching for my kids. But it’s not just the commercials. We can’t sequester them at all times.
Steph
I just added a post with some healthier olympic sponsorship videos: http://www.phdinparenting.com/2010/02/24/healthier-olympic-sponsorship-videos/
With an MBA in Marketing I’ve been doing the same thing with my kids as Marcy’s friend has. It works. They get it.
Agree TOTALLY with Callie in that it is possible to control your household to the extent that you can. We never do fast food. And I mean, never. My kids don’t know what McDonald’s tastes like. Neither have never had any drink with carbonation in it – just 100% juice, or milk, or water. It is possible to avoid fast food & soft drinks altogether; just begin it and go from there. Our two boys, 3 and 6, have been going to the gym play area from the respective age of 2 months each so that my husband & I could work out 3+ days/week. They understand that junk food inhibits performance, and that a relatively healthy diet is part of how at 40 years & 106 pounds I can pick up the 40-pound 6-year-old or the 30-pound 3-year-old and swing them around, or just pick the older one up while waiting for the bus and (for now, at least) they think that’s cool & fun. They watch us do what we can do in the gym – lift weights, balance into yoga positions – and they know how much fun it is for us & how much we enjoy it. They see us go out to go running & come home hot & stinky on a regular basis. And they know we do it because we are trying to be the best we can be. As time moves on it will become harder and harder for us to be in the shape we are now. The 3-year-old especially is into yoga & it’s cute to see. Food is just a part of the picture. I bake at home using some really good butter, etc. so the real emphasis is on the fact that Mickey D’s is able to sell cheaply because their base ingredients are cheap and cheaply made, and therefore just not as good; they’re just junk – yuk! And you don’t put that disgusting stuff down your throat when you can get much better at other places. That’s simplistic – but for the most part, accurate. There are good restaurants, and there are bad restaurants. Note Chili’s & Outback are just as bad as McDonald’s!! Ever read Men’s Health “Eat This, Not That?”
So I could care less about the advertising. McDonald’s gives the money which allows my sons to witness some of the coolest athleticism out there, and that’s worth getting off any super-high moral horse I could be riding. If they’d like to eat junk later, then they’ll have to ride their own bikes to get it, and I won’t be making a big deal out of it, but here at home, we’ll continue to be eating healthily, no matter what.
And you know? I could care less who lets their kids eat Mickey D’s & drink soft drinks, and who loves or hates the gym & working out, and what kind of shape anyone’s in or even cares to be in. It’s not for me to pass judgment on anyone or anyone’s method of parenting their own children. We all live life and parent how we can, how it feels good for each of us to do it, and we all make mistakes. There’s no one right way to feel about any of these parenting issues, either, whether it be breastfeeding, co-sleeping, going organic, joining the PTO or not. We can go through feeling guilty, or we can just chill out. They’re all future 40-year-olds anyway, & rest assured we’ll have done something wrong by the time they’re 19, & something right by the time they’re 35. That’s my loooong 2 cents.
Seems that a lot of people didn´t like seeing athletes endorse junk food: http://www.canada.com/health/like+elite+athlete/2631669/story.html
I get it everyone knows that fast food is bad for everyone, but to put the blame on one athlete is crazy. If you don’t want your kids exposed to commercials don’t let them watch TV! How many Amish out there are overweight? I haven’t researched it but I lived in an Amish town and there wasn’t one! My kids and I do eat fast food way more than we should, but it is my fault not the athletes not the retailers not the comercials but mine. Take responsibility parents! Your 3 and 5 year old cannot drive to McDonalds, order their happy meals, and drive themselves home consuming them. So your kids are wining because they want it-of course they are all kids wine and cry when they can’t get their way. It is your responsibility to tell your kids NO! Do not drive them to McDonalds and order their food. It is Retailers jobs to advertise to sell things, it is what brings them income to put food on their tables to feed their families. It is so easy to blame someone else for the way your kids turn out but PARENTS ARE THE CHILD’S FIRST TEACHERS!!!! Take responsibility in raising your children, if advertisements make it harder on you then do not put your kid in front of a tv (which is also bad for them) and let them watch repeated commercials on advertisments you do not like.
Laura:
I agree that children shouldn’t be mindlessly sitting in front of the TV. However, I do think there is value in them watching the Olympics. But if they can’t watch the Olympics without being inundated with messages about how top athletes eat McDonald’s every chance they get, I think that is really sad.
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