ARE SPORTS STARS MAJOR PLAYERS IN OUR NATION'S OBESITY EPIDEMIC?
Most of you will not welcome and appreciate the message in this post.
However, many of you are not happy with your health; and when you examine yourself in a full length mirror, you are dismayed to view an expanding waistline and other body parts in spite of efforts to exercise and watch your diet.
Your only consolation is that you are not alone. Wherever you go in our country, you will see a growing majority of people also fighting a losing battle with excess fat and unaware of why it is happening!
As a nation, the latest research reveals that 21st Century Americans, of every age, are bigger, fatter and sicker than at any other time in the history of humankind.
According the to the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease and cancer are out of control epidemics in our society. "Sixty Percent of our population is obese and overweight with Thirty Percent being medically obese."
The state of health in our nation is rapidly deteriorating; and although there are other significant factors such as sedentary lifestyles and lack of exercise, the MAJOR PROBLEM IS OUR FOOD SUPPLY, which is mostly MANUFACTURED FOODS AND BEVERAGES containing TOXIC ingredients destroying our health.
These toxins include preservatives, pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, steroids, artificial sweeteners, gluten and GMO crops, etc.
But this post will focus on the worst and most damaging, which is the silent and sneaky invasion of large amounts of sugar into almost everything we eat and drink purchased at grocery stores and served at fast food places.
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| Maria Sharapova |
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| Serena Williams |
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| LeBron James |
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| Derrick Rose |
The above sports icons are only four of hundreds of athletes and celebrities who receive millions of dollars, yearly, to promote the sales of foods and beverages loaded with SUGAR that are destroying the health of millions of their fans, especially the children and adolescents who idolize them.
We would like to believe that these four athletes are not really aware that their endorsements of highly sugared products are so destructive to the health of their fans, since it was only three years ago that sugar's profound dangers were publicly presented to the mainstream of America.
THE SUGAR ENLIGHTENMENT OF 2012
Like most Americans, we were aware that large amounts of sugar in out diets was not really good, but we had no idea it was so ubiquitous and destructive until three years ago:
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| Sanjay Gupta, MD. |
This Special featured Dr. Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist
at the University of California, who had earlier shocked the world with his U TUBE lecture entitled "Sugar: The Bitter Truth."
His videos have been viewed millions of times and subsequent research have only reinforced his alarming news that the large amounts of ADDED SUGAR IN OUR NATION'S MANUFACTURED FOODS AND BEVERAGES has been found to be an ADDICTIVE TOXIN THAT IS SIGNIFICANTLY CAUSING OUR COUNTRY'S EPIDEMIC INCREASES IN OBESITY, TYPE 2 DIABETES, HEART DISEASE AND CANCER.
The average person in our society unknowingly consumes in the neighborhood of 130 to 150 pounds of sugar per year, more than one third of a pound daily, which is largely stored as fat, according to Dr. Lustig.
Dr Lustig identified SUGAR as an ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCE in the same category as COCAINE.
During the Special, Dr. Gupta inserted himself self into an MRI Scanner and sipped drops of a cola through a straw resulting in an immediate response of the pleasure centers of the brain in the same way as a response to cocaine.
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| Dr. Gupta getting into the scanner |
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| Dr. Gupta's brain lighting up on sugar |
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| Dr. Robert Lustig |
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| Derrick Rose |
I recently became incensed and motivated to research and write this post after viewing a commercial starring Derrick Rose, star guard for the NBA's Chicago Bulls. The video shows the streets of impoverished Engelwood, U.S.A, a Chicago community of Derrick's origin, as he offers hope and inspiration to rise above these harsh conditions.
The commercial shows Derrick packing a bottle of Powerade as he leaves home for a tour of Engelwood with the final scene being a close up of Derrick drinking from the large bottle of Powerade.
The not so subtle, but powerfully subliminal, message is that Powerade is a key to rising to success from adverse social environments and encourages all, especially youth, to freely imbibe.
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| The amount of sugar in this Powerade bottle is 13 teaspoons! |
The harsh reality is that daily consumption of Powerade and other sugar laden beverages will keep most residents stuck in Engelwood, Illinois as they struggle with obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease, cancer and premature death.
Our nation's tremendous thirst for flavored beverages range from colas to sweet teas to energy and vitamin drinks. The list of choices is steadily increasing, but almost all contain large amounts of sugar in the range of 32 to 48 grams (8 to 12 teaspoons) of sugar
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| Rethink your Drink! |
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| This coke can looks innocent enough, but... |
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| There is nearly 10 teaspoons in every serving in this large bottle of coke! |
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| The packaging looks healthy, but... |
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| But there is nearly 8 teaspoons of sugar in this "healthy" drink! |
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| Healthy?? There are 8 teaspoons in every serving! |
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| Mer's former favorite: it has 8 teaspoons of sugar in each serving--2 teaspoons more than her daily recommended allowance! |
Newsweek reports that, "while adults consume more than three times the daily recommended intake of six teaspoons, American children are nearly quadrupling that number. An astounding 33 percent of all that added sugar comes from soft drinks."
Samantha Olson, of medicaldaily, writes about the beverage companies spending over 3 billion dollars yearly "in an effort to tempt consumers to pick up a liter of brown bubbly sugar with their pizza, or a case of cans for their child's next birthday party. Those little children have an 80 per cent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes if they become regular soda drinkers. Their future will become one full of kidney problems, reproductive issues, osteoporosis, asthma and bad teeth with dissolved tooth enamel."
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| LeBron James loves his sodas! |
LeBron James, king of the basketball court and king of colas has even named a cola after himself:
He obviously never received the "memo" that his endorsed beverages (Coca Cola/Sprite), donuts (Dunkin), and fast foods (McDonald's) directly lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer for his millions of fans.
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| LeBron James at McDonald's--pregame meal?? |
LeBron appears to be more focused on his proclaimed goal to become a billionaire, and his endorsements provide double the income received for playing professional basketball. He has earned over 145 million for playing basketball and over an estimated 350 million in endorsements!
LeBron is a good bet to join the billionaire club. He has befriended multibillionaire (64 billion) William Buffet, and they have dined and played golf together. Already, he has heeded Buffet's advice for making some wise investments.
LeBron's greedy ambitions apparently overwhelm any concerns about promoting unhealthy food stuffs and beverages to his millions of youthful fans.
In his recent KIA automobile commercial, he was viewed eating Fruity Pebbles for breakfast (added money from Post Foods). Really, LeBron, do you eat this for breakfast regularly???
Here is a box of Fruity Pebbles and its ingredients--note the sugar content!
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| 12 teaspoons of sugar in this box of Fruity Pebbles! Forbes contributor, Peter Ubel, wrote an article entitled, "Is LeBron James Fattening his Wallet by Fattening our Kids?" |
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| LeBron James if he consumed what he endorses! |
Ubel writes about his 13 year old son, a huge LeBron fan. "My
son would probably never admit that he thinks Powerade is cool because LeBron drinks it. He might not even recognize how his attitudes about that product have been influenced by LeBron's endorsements. But you can bet that the advertising has worked its magic on him, and hundreds of thousands of other 13- year olds."
He concludes that, "LeBron James should be ashamed to make money endorsing such unhealthy products" and he recommends "encouraging famous athletes - who, like it or not, are role models for our children - to put their greed aside long enough to do what is right."
Actually, leading athletes should be warning their youthful fans to avoid the sugar packed foods and beverages that they are endorsing.
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| Serena and her oreos |
Serena Williams, arguably the greatest woman tennis player ever, and tremendous inspiration for millions of children, adolescents and young women around the globe, receives large sums of money for promoting sugar filled foods and beverages.
In an article entitled "Top Athletes Catch Flak for Endorsements Promoting Junk Foods to Kids", Gitte Laasby identifies Serena as the third leading sports celebrity for endorsing unhealthy food and drink products. Only football star, Peyton Manning and basketball great, LeBron James beat her out.
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| Maria Sharapova with her sugar products |
The second highest paid female athlete, Serena Williams, would have challenged Maria for Number 1 IF she had won the U.S. Open and completed a calendar Grand Slam.
Tennis star, Caroline Wozniacki was the third highest paid and in fourth place was race car driver, Danica Patrick.
Over a 12 month period, Maria earned nearly 30 million dollars of which 23 million were endorsement monies from such companies as Nike, Avon, Evian, Porsche and Tag Heuer.
Unlike Derrick, LeBron and Serena, Maria Sharapova does not appear to endorse unhealthy food and drink products, although she has certainly been offered considerable funds to do so. Her only endorsed beverage is Evian waters.
However, Maria Sharapova takes the cake for directly endorsing SUGAR when she introduced her Sugarpova Candy Lounge at the 2012 Wimbledon Championships:
Her candies include sours, licorice and tennis ball shaped gum with the promise to "serve yourself some fruit flavored gum balls and chew them up on court. Winning sure is sweet."
Maria was very excited about her new business and had even considered changing her surname to Sugarpova to promote her "premium candy line".
However, her timing was not so sweet since the health risks of sugar had just recently been publicized resulting in
significant resistance from scientists and nutritionists, who viewed Maria's promotion of sugar as being comparable to Martina Navratilova promoting cigarettes in 1982.
...and prosperous beverage and food manufacturers such as Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, Nabisco and MacDonalds continue to pay famous people billions of dollars to promote their products...
...and our nation continues down the road to be the fattest and sickest people ever!
