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Monstrous Marketing: Unbrainwashing Gatorade Athletes

Welcome to a new Plant Yourself feature: Monstrous Marketing.

Marketing is a huge part of the reason most people are overweight and sick. So marketing has to become a huge part of the solution.

In Monstrous Marketing, I'll be sharing examples of misleading and manipulative marketing around diet and lifestyle, and suggest ways to neutralize this garbage for ourselves and our loved ones.

Today's Topic: Gatorade for Young Athletes

A reader wonders:

My boys are extreme athletes. We have the 80/20 rule with regards to food at our house. My boys (9 and 11) are very strong willed and fight with me about water to sunscreen. One of our biggest disagreements is about Gatorade. At their baseball games I sit and watch what the other kids are eating and drinking and I cringe. I only let my boys drink water at games but they beg for Gatorade every game and think I'm a horrible mom because I ‘force them to eat healthy.' I know Gatorade is not good for the kids especially because of the colored dye. I would really appreciate any help here. What would be a better choice for a sports drink substitute?

My reply:

Gatorade Sports Science InstituteFirst of all, there's no question that Gatorade is crap. Artificial colors, tons of sugar or artificial sweeteners, and various other highly processed and fractioned ingredients. Drinking water and eating fruit would be a much healthier option.

Now, before you jump in and get into a big fight, I think it's helpful to understand the enemy. Gatorade (owned by Pepsi) was the first entry into the sports drink market, but struggled for many years once it became outflanked by the cheaper Powerade (owned by Coke) and more expensive Pocari Sweat. In 2007, sales of Gatorade nosedived, and in 2008 the company brought in fresh blood to revitalize the brand.

Sarah Robb O’Hagan, the new CEO, led an effort to market the colored sugar water to young boys. According to Fast Company's Jason Feifer:

Robb O’Hagan looked into research on when kids stop playing for fun and start competing. That seems to happen around age 11, so Gatorade began making more of a push with coaches of that age level. It also revised lesson plans at its 4,000-plus sponsored summer camps and sports tournaments to stress a connection between nutrition and performance.

Gatorade spends millions of dollars buying athletes who will promote the brand. They've created a  sports science think tank, the Gatorade Sports Science Exchange, that lends scientific credence to its nutritional fantasies. And they're aiming real big in their efforts to own your boys' minds, sponsoring serious sports websites like Stack.com and establishing “Gatorade as a hub of fitness knowledge” via their new high-tech Gatorade Sports Science Institute in Chicago.

The Fix

Here's a case where media education is needed, along with nutrition education and authoritative parenting. Read the Fast Company article on Gatorade with your kids. Discuss advertising in sports, and get them to start seeing how professional athletes get paid by junk food companies to promote their stuff.

And find some athletes with integrity (there are many in the plant-based movement) who can serve as alternate role models for your young competitors. Check out The Fruitarian and introduce your boys to Michael Arnstein, one of the top endurance athletes in the world. Have them correspond with Rich Roll, the former couch potato turned ultra triathlete.

Ask them to research the ingredients in their favorite flavor of Gatorade for health concerns and side effects.

Take them shopping for fruits and raw nuts and granola mixes. Get a book on healthy smoothies and have them taste test recipes. (Start with Tracy Russell's The Best Green Smoothies on the Planet or Julie Morris' Superfood Smoothies).

And let me know how it goes…

Warmly
Howard

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Trigger-Free Leadership: Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

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