Olympic Games, Coca-Cola, and Health Hazards
By Arvind M. Dhople, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Florida Tech
The Olympic Games in 2024 had been providing inspiration and entertainment to many. As usual, the Olympic Games never fail to provide remarkable stories. As an example, US gymnast Simone Biles reclaimed a hatful gold medals after withdrawing from the 2020 Tokyo Games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) tells its own inspirational stories: about how the Olympics can encourage physical activity, develop a social and environmental legacy, lead by example corporate citizenship, and strengthen the role of sport in supporting the Sustainable Development Goals. A Cooperation Agreement between the IOC and WHO (World Health Organization), renewed this year, talks of dedication to health promotion policy and action, and contributing to the prevention of non-communicable diseases. These are admirable ideals.
However, calls from public health advocates are mounting for the IOC to terminate its marketing and sponsorship with the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company, the world’s largest beverage manufacturer and distributor. Health activists and experts are certainly right to call out the hypocrisy of Coca-Cola’s prominent sponsorship of the Olympics. A new campaign – Kick Big Soda Out of Sport – is calling for an end to soft-drink manufacturers’ sponsorship of sporting events, starting with Coca-Cola’s partnership with the Games.
Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is helping to drive up rates of diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease, causing an estimated 3.6 million disability-adjusted life-years and 75,700 deaths in 2021. Soft drinks manufacturers have made concerted attempts to undermine public health efforts to reduce these harms through sugar taxes. Seeing Coca-Cola’s logo alongside the IOC’s pledges to encourage physical activity, one cannot help but see the Games as being co-opted into an industry narrative that has downplayed the importance of diet for health and instead puts the sole emphasis on exercise. Likewise, it is impossible to square the IOC’s promises on health with the Game’s prominent partnership with AB InBev – the world’s biggest brewer.
The makes much of its envisioned legacy for encouraging physical activity – Paris 2024 is no different. The idea that the spectacle of the Games will inspire spectators to alter their lifestyles and improve population physical activity lacks good evidence. Recently, the WHO reported a new report that the Games could work over many years with host governments to introduce community-based initiatives to encourage physical activity. Paris 2024, in partnership with the French Ministry of National Education and Youth and the French National Sports Agency, has a scheme encouraging the introduction of 30 minutes of daily physical activity in schools throughout France. Whether the initiative will have a lasting impact on rates of physical activity remains to be seen.
Such criticisms are not to undermine the achievements of Olympic athletes or the joy they give the many millions watching worldwide. But the Olympics makes much of its values – “Olympism is a philosophy of life, which places sport at the service of humankind”. If the IOC insists on making lofty pledges about the Games’ social, health, and environmental legacy, it must do better than simply telling stories of corporate responsibility. For a start, it should drop its shortsighted and hypocritical partnerships with companies that enable great harm to health and wellbeing.
Recent Comments