Americans have something new to blame for their obesity and general lethargy: movie and sports stars. “Fun usually means bad food,” said Dan Glickman, the former president of the Motion Picture Association of America that runs the Academy Awards.
Glickman is part of a group at the Bipartisan Policy Center trying to make it easier for Americans to live and eat better. But he concedes that it’s hard to do when nobody from the entertainment industry helps out. “The people who are in movies and professional sports, the people folks pay to see in sports and entertainment, are all healthy, glamorous, and beautiful and yet the food that’s served in the venues they go to see them in is by and large high sugar, high fat and high cholesterol.”
Glickman, a former Clinton-era Agriculture secretary, is hoping some of the stars come out against bad theater and stadium food, and he wants the venues to offer healthier menus. He told Washington Secrets that the movie and sports industry can use their anti-smoking campaign as a model. At MPAA he led the way to have smoking added as a rating warning.
Of course, Glickman added, people like to escape at the movies with a box of Goobers or a warm tub of buttered popcorn, but, “there are alternatives to candy.”
