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Mosiah
Moderator
USA
30 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 23 2003 : 07:54:25 AM
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...or can we afford not having one?
Football sponsorship undermines healthy eating
Taken from The Food Magazine published 27th January 2003
Football clubs in the Premier League are in a unique position to influence children's attitudes to physical exercise and healthy eating. Recognising this potential, many clubs now offer educational programmes, working with schools to promote fitness, and to address factors that affect a healthy lifestyle, such as drug use, smoking, alcohol consumption and food choices.
Such programmes always sound like a positive way forward. We took a closer look to see if individual schemes matched up to these expectations. We contacted Premier League football clubs and asked them about their healthy living education programmes.
We visited some of the clubs to see their educational activities in action. To complete the survey, we examined the national activities related to food and health of the sport's coordinating bodies - the Football Association (FA) and the FA Premier League.
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We were impressed by teams such as West Ham, Charlton Athletic and Liverpool. These clubs were working with schools to promote good nutrition as well as physical exercise and a healthy attitude to drugs and alcohol. The message was reinforced by popular role models - football stars whose health and performance relies on following the advice of sports scientists and independent nutritionists.
But children supporting other Premier League clubs were given poor or partial advice on healthy living via football clubs and training academies, or received no nutritional advice at all. Where nutrition was discussed, activities were sometimes sponsored by fast-food, soft-drink and confectionery companies.
With so much money at stake, it is unlikely that most Premier League teams, the Football Association or the FA Premier League will voluntarily exclude food companies from sponsorship deals, even when children's long-term health is at stake. Food companies will continue to associate themselves with high-profile and popular sports. The Food Commission has now written to Public Health Minister Hazel Blears asking her to take action to ensure that school-linked schemes promoting sport and healthy living do not also promote foods high in fats, sugar and salt.
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Pepsi and Manchester United
Pepis is an official sponsour of Manchester United, which may explain why several leading Manchester United players can be found on an extraordinary marketing website (www.pepsi-football.co.uk), where top players are photographed drinking Pepsi. Each player wears a specially designed football strip in the Pepsi brand colours of two shades of blue. Thankfully these highly paid players can afford the best dental care, so tooth decay shouldn't be a problem for them, although it may be for their millions of fans around the world.
FA endorses chocolate bars
The FA claims it has "developed partnerships with companies that share its vision". It seems that this vision is about profit rather than improvements in diet and health, see the box Eating well to play better? below.
FA Premier League promotes Walkers crisps
We wrote to the FA Premier League in August last year to ask if it had, or would consider, nutritional guidelines for the kinds of children's foods and drinks which it helped to promote. We were prompted to contact them when a member of the Parents Jury sent in a multi-pack of Walkers Crisps marketed with free FA Premier League stickers.
When we checked the organisation's website, there was no mention of promoting good nutrition in the FA Premier League's 'roles and objectives'. The key objective that seems to have guided their decision to work with Walkers is "To generate increased commercial value." Six months later, the FA Premier League has not responded to our letter.
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Can we afford a nutrition program...
