In Ali Jatoi’s Blog post: Why Are So Many Athletes Promoting Junkfood?, he explains the growing concern of popular athletes that are advertising for “junk-food”. It is indeed, a growing concern that athletes are promoting this food that they do not indulge in often.
It completely makes financial sense for companies to go after famous athletes to promote their products. Millions of children have an athletic hero, and they follow everything that they do. Therefore, an avid basketball player seeing Lebron James (NBA Superstar) eat a hamburger from McDonalds would be falsely persuaded to think that Lebron eats the product constantly and it contributes to his overall game. Basically, this is just a growing concern among this generation. This is a generation where a health-conscious movement is growing, and it doesn’t help when we see famous athletes/celebrities advertise for junk-food. It isn’t a financial problem for companies, but it is definitely an ethical one, which can hurt financials in the future. A company, especially as large as McDonalds, should not risk the publicity and risk of a negative reputation from using famous athletes as promoters of their unhealthy products.
https://blogs.ubc.ca/alijatoi/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/athletes-in-junk-food-ads-send-kids-mixed-messages-1.1913330