14 Aug A Physician’s Perspective on Alcohol Sponsorship in Sport
As a Naturopathic Physician, I’m very passionate about the subject of alcohol sponsorship in sport and strongly feel we need to think about the message it sends to everyone, but particularly young kids. When kids they see their sporting heroes covered in alcohol advertising as they’re kicking a goal in the grand finals, it completely sends the wrong message and confuses them.
We know that alcohol is a major source of harm both to individuals and to the population living in our society. This is especially important when the evidence suggests that as young as 6 months old, before kids can even speak, they can start linking brand logos with products. We need to realize the investments in advertising and the huge amounts of money that are being poured into advertising exist for the sole reason that it works! So if we are to get serious about reducing the harm of alcohol across society, and particularly from our most vulnerable – our kids – then we need to start “delinking” sport and elite sport as well as our heroes in society with something that causes a lot of harm.
Remember twenty years ago when it was completely normal to smoke on a plane? Today if someone lit up a cigarette on my flight from Vancouver to Portland, the whole plane would probably be stopped and the police would likely show up. I feel we need to get to a point where we are just as alarmed and just as outraged by the idea of alcohol advertising being on the chests of our elite athletes, the heroes of impressionable young minds, as we are about smoking around our kids (and on airplanes).
This mind shift is only going to happen if a few things occur. First and foremost, fundamentally it’s about strong policy from policy makers. It’s about all sides of politics realizing that our kids and the safety of our kids are more important than selling alcohol. We have to agree that we have a collective responsibility to protect kids from their advertising.
Second, we need to support education campaigns as well as teachers and parents by providing them with information to help them make responsible choices about their kids.
But ultimately the buck stops with policy. Alcohol is a product that is associated with a number of disease outcomes: there is no safe level for drinking and many Canadians drink much more than what is deemed reasonably safe. Alcohol is linked with a number of cancers, it’s linked with many of the leading causes of death, it’s linked with obesity and weight gain. So a perspective shift is about education and clear labeling, it’s about empowering the consumer regarding the risks they are taking so they can make a more informed decision. It’s about having better alcohol education in our schools and in our societies with targeted campaigns using clever messaging.
It’s also about the public health and medical community of which I’m apart to realize that this is something we need to address in society. We as a society have a deeply unhealthy relationship with alcohol. We smash a bottle against the side of a ship to launch it, we drink champagne to celebrate things, when in actual fact we know that these are products associated with obesity, cardiovascular disease and many cancers. That’s not to say alcohol should in any way be banned, but I do feel it should be harder to find and harder to over consume. Making alcohol even a little bit more expensive could also unlock some more important funding to reduce the harms associated with unhealthy drinking.