Pro Athletes Hawking UnHealthy Foods: LeBron James, Peyton Manning, Serena Williams

Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy summarized findings of a recent study analyzing food endorsements by sports celebrities by concluding:

"The promotion of energy-dense, nutrient-poor products by some of the world’s most physically fit and well-known athletes is an ironic combination that sends mixed messages about diet and health."

That's muted academic-speak to say that professional athletes are hypocrites for endorsing junk food. But endorse they do... to the tune of millions of dollars in rich endorsement deals. 

The fascinating study, published in the Pediatrics journal in November 2013, found that of the 100 professional athletes with the highest-value endorsements in 2010:

• They were paid to promote 44 different food and beverage brands
• Food and beverage brands were the second largest category of endorsements, behind only sporting goods 
• 79% of their 62 food endorsements were for fast food or junk food
• 93% of their beverage endorsements were for drinks with "100% of calories from added sugar"

The biggest hypocritical fast-food offenders among health-conscious, physically fine-tuned professional athletes?

Peyton Manning (pictured below), reportedly earns $10 million per year from Papa John's pizza, Gatorade (owned by PepsiCo), Wheaties (General Mills), as well as DirectTV and Sony. In 2012, NFL quarterback Manning bought 21 Papa John franchises in Colorado.

LeBron James, NBA superstar, "received $5 million to endorse Bubblicious Gum, including his own flavor, LeBron's Lightening Lemonade," in addition to his lucrative contracts with McDonalds, Sprite, and Powerade.

Joe Maurer, six-time All Star baseball player and Minnesota Twins catcher, peddles Pepsi-cola, Gatorade, and Kemps ice cream, including Joe Maurer-blessed Grand Slam Monster Cookie flavor ice cream and a limited-edition 12-pack of Joe Maurer ice cream sandwiches. 

Serena Williams, perhaps the all-time greatest woman tennis champion, endorses Oreo cookies (owned by Kraft/Nabisco), Gatorade (owned by PepsiCo), and Nabisco 100-Calorie Snack Packs. 

Kobe Bryant, 15-time NBA All-Star and Los Angeles Laker team captain, is rumored to earn a whopping $12 million annually solely from his contract to push McDonald's menu. 

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., NASCAR driver, is paid to shill for Mountain Dew, Hellman's/Best Foods Mayonnaise, and Amp Energy, a "flavor extension of the Mountain Dew brand", which is owned by PepsiCo.

Sports celebrities endorsing fast food, junk food, and/or sugary drinks hail from football, basketball, baseball, hockey, tennis, skateboarding, even Olympic sports as speed skating. 

Without exception, professional athletes promoting "energy-dense, nutrient-poor products" are extraordinarily fit physically, and must adhere to a disciplined, health-conscious diet.  

Yet, the food and beverages they endorse to Americans... particularly to U.S. children... are unhealthy. 

Kids revere and often long to emulate professional athletes as LeBron James, Peyton Manning, Serena Williams, Joe Maurer, Kobe Bryant, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Which, of course, is why fake-food corporations dangle million-dollar contracts to entice popular athletes to lend cache and credibility to their unhealthy fare.  And per the study, "research shows that athlete endorsements are associated with higher healthfulness ratings on the products they endorse." 

Greedy industrial food mega-corporations will do what it takes to sell their highly processed, salty, sugary, fatty food products. That's a sad given in 2013. 

But professional athletes know better. In their own lives, they do better. But certain athletes choose to enrich themselves by hawking an unhealthy dietary mantra to the American public.   

Exhorted the study, "The promotion of energy-dense, nutrient-poor products by some of the world’s most physically fit and well-known athletes is an ironic combination that sends mixed messages about diet and health."

Indeed! I wonder... do these athletes feed a steady diet of fast food, soft drinks, and junk food to their children and loved ones? 

New Nabisco Triscuits: We Made a Real-Food Dent in Industrial Fake Foods!

Holy healthy foods!!!  They hear us. And they're making  product changes to appease and please us! 

Our Real Food movement is apparently having an impact on at least one  industrial fake-food manufacturing mega-corporation.

Just imagine! A brand-new Nabisco cracker line obviously created to appeal to shoppers looking for products made with real foods, and not concocted with chemicals, additives, fillers, stabilizers, and dozens of fake-food  industrial ingredients.  

I found this box (see at right) in a special display at Stater Bros, a major 167-store grocery chain. Not at a health food store, not some expensive specialty-foods store. A typical chain grocery store, albeit one that does try a bit harder to also stock better-quality fare (expanded organic produce sections, La Brea Bakery breads, a to-go salad bar).  

Mind you... Triscuits are a snack food, and not equivalents of fruits and veggies, which are better food choices.  These crackers are not fortified with vitamins and minerals essential to anyone's health. Nutritionists would still apply the "empty calories" tag to Nabisco's Brown Rice line of Triscuits. (Three sugars are among the ingredients, below.)

But all Americans indulge in snacks. These particular snacks appear to be largely free of the cheapest, nastiest non-food chemicals and fillers, unlike almost all processed snack foods. 

That, alone, would be huge health news. That, alone, is a signal that the Real Food movement is starting to impact the U.S. food supply.

Invoking a "Health Halo" Effect

Per the requisite Nutrition Facts label,  ingredients of Brown Rice Triscuits Baked with Sweet Potato are:

• Long grain brown rice
• Soybean oil
• Whole grain soft white wheat 
• Dried sweet potato
• Onion powder
• Brown sugar
• Sweet potato powder
• Sea salt
• Sugar
• Garlic powder
• Dried molasses
• Dried parsley
• Yeast extract
• Distilled white vinegar
• Citric acid

The ingredients sound appealing, like ingredients you and I might use in our kitchens. Which, of course, is Nabisco's whole marketing point: to invoke a much-desired "health halo" effect for this new Brown Rice line of Triscuits, thereby achieving their sole goal of increasing sales and profits. 

The box of Brown Rice Triscuits Baked with Sweet Potato is festooned with Real Food marketing goodness:

"Triscuits... delicious... real food snacks. Made with delicious real food ingredients."

"We start with 100% WHOLE GRAIN BROWN RICE & WHEAT and bake in real food ingredients such as pieces of delicious golden SWEET POTATOES or savory RED BEANS."

I sheepishly confess... the new cracker tastes terrific, although a tad too salty.  I like the lighter texture and crispier crunch better than traditional Triscuits.  I'm sure the four other flavors available at Stater Bros also taste terrific. Industrial-made snack foods are always engineered to taste absolutely terrific.  

 Is this the entire ingredient list? I don't know. 

Are any of the ingredients laced with chemicals, additives, fillers, stabilizers? I don't know. Probably yes, since the box has no spoilage date and does not indicate "no preservatives."

   
Is this a healthy snack? No, of course not.  Nuts, fruits, veggies, cheeses are far healthier snack choices.  Nutritionists lament "health halo" snacks because they fear that...

"...people eat so much more of the ever-so-slightly less awful, so-called 'better for you' choice that they actually eat more in the way of calories, or salt, or sugar than they would have had they chosen that food's blatantly junky brother." (Source - U.S. News and World Report Health: Why Baked Chips are Worse Than Fried)

As a Real Food advocate, though, I celebrate Nabisco's new Brown Rice product line of Triscuit crackers.   

This new product that sounds seemingly near-free of industrial ingredients means we are that having an impact on industrial fake-food manufacturing mega-corporations... in this instance, Nabisco, which is owned by Kraft Foods, conveniently renamed recently as Mondelez International. 

Making one tiny dent in product formulation strategies for industrial fake-food corporations is cause for celebration. 

Certainly, it's only the very beginning of what will be a long crusade to clean-up the health-shattering morass of U.S. industrial-made foods... but I feel encouraged. They hear us. And they're finally making  product changes to appease and please us!