I remember when I was younger and major cigarette brand and a fast food chain sponsored the cricket and a separate cigarette brand sponsored rugby league - for profit, not health.
The great rock star David Bowie came to Sydney in 1978 and no doubt saw a beer ad on TV. The commercial featured a major sports event. At the end of his show he started to sing the words in the ad to the crowd!
It does leave question marks on the idea that we have sport to increase our general health. It makes me ask about whether it is a good idea to leave sport in the hands of corporate market forces, when they use sport to put unhealthy food and drink in our hands. It is true that we have banned cigarette advertising from sport, but what about the rest of the the alcohol and high carbohydrate food ads, which sponsor major TV sports events.
We live in a world where each time we go into the supermarket, we see carbohydrates on steroids, on parade for all to see. Huge corporate companies benefit from pushing their unhealthy food and drink products onto sports audiences.
We have left so many things to market forces. Why then, do we not push sport into that direction? I mean there's nothing to lose, right? These big sports events get great ratings and the advertisers need to benefit.
We have gone along with this nonsense and it goes against everything sport has stood for. It stands for better health, given that athletes have to become fit to play their sports.
When you add to the mix all the unhealthy things, you will prevent, not help young people from becoming good at sport. You will make them fat and unhealthy.
The same could be said for the viewers. One would think that sport - something, which makes people healthy, could promote better health to all its fans. Somehow, the opposite is true.
If we truly want to make the world a better place, then we must use sport as public forums to educate people about the ills of unhealthy food and drink consumption.
Politicians and health activists should push the state and federal health departments and organisations such as the AMA and trade unions, to sponsor all televised sports events with public health announcements. These would tell the audience what consuming carbohydrates, drinking alcohol and smoking can do to a person's body. The ads could focus on what illegal drugs do to people.
All of this must replace the current advertising of unhealthy products seen in televised sport and companies which make unhealthy products must stop their sponsorship of sports codes and teams.
I have become one of these people who would love to see us use our liberties and right of freedom of choice to ban everything, which is unhealthy from everywhere. Yes some people may say this will go against our liberties, but we will not have liberty if unhealthy products eventually make us too sick to do anything! There is nothing ethical about people who make money from promotion of something which will harm other people. We live in an insane world ― Joseph Walz
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