McDonald’s and the Olympic Games…Perfect!
According to McDonald’s website, they “became an official sponsor of the Olympic Games in 1976 and have a longstanding commitment to the Olympic Movement. At the 1968 Olympic Winter Games, McDonald’s airlifted hamburgers to U.S. athletes competing in Grenoble, France, who reported they were homesick for McDonald’s food.”
Nothing like a nice big bite of good old American ‘cuisine’ when you’re abroad, competing your heart out and taxing your body to the extreme!
Certainly, many athletes feel they can ‘get away with’ eating this type of fare. I know some personally and train with some myself. In fact, some even say that the reason why they train and race is to eat said junk. Of course, I’m not in the company of Olympic athletes so I’m not surmising for one second that the latter statement would apply to anyone competing in the 2012 games. The first statement, however, very well could.
True, if you’re expending thousands of calories per day, you can, indeed consume large portions of calories in the form of junk and perhaps not gain weight as your sedentary counterpart might…but does that mean it’s a good idea?
No doubt this topic is a sore subject to many and neither nothing new nor something that’s about to change any time soon.
However, perhaps, at the very least, it can be a reminder to where the values (or even morals?) lie when we think about what we see advertised to us.
The next time you see an ad for a great new pill to help with depression, a handy new fast food/frozen meal in a tray, or a billboard for the latest method of surgery that one can undergo to staple their stomach or suck fat off their belly, think about where all of this is coming from.
Quick fixes and band aids to allow you to not change bad habits (like eating regularly dining at McDonald’s) but to try to remedy them unnaturally after the fact are just not a good idea.
Comfort food to make you feel better when you’re away from home? Really? It’s just so wrong on so many levels.
And the athletes eating it…think about what their bodies are able to do and the amazing amount of focus, dedication and commitment they exhibit. And they’re still performing!
So imagine for a moment how much better they might be still if they ate real fuel? Hello, Paleo?
Just sayin’…
