What rocket fuel spurred Jamaican track star Usain Bolt to shatter the men's 100-metre record at this weekend's World Athletic Championships? He's told you once and he'll tell you again: It was the Chicken McNuggets.
Mr. Bolt first shared his penchant for the fried, breaded poultry after his gold medal win at the Beijing Olympics last summer when reporters asked about his prerace prep.
"I woke around 11 a.m. and decided to watch some TV and had some nuggets," the Daily Mirror reported him saying. "Then I slept for a couple of hours more. Then I got some more nuggets and came to the track."
Now, as the lean 22-year-old sprinter dominates headlines again - and reaffirms his love for McNuggets - his fast food fetish is a perfect excuse for kids to lure their mom and dad into Mickey D's. But how can parents who'd rather limit their children's grease intake contest the diet of a star like Mr. Bolt?
For one thing, it's fair to say McNuggets alone can't make him run that fast.
Kids, and the general public, aren't getting the whole picture of what he eats on a daily basis, says Simone Finkelstein, a nutritionist in Toronto.
"We're not sitting with him for breakfast, lunch and dinner to actually see what he's eating for all his other meals," she says. "It's everything in moderation."
Telling kids they can make their own healthier alternative at home may also quiet their demands for athlete-plugged junk food, she notes.
Children already know that a steady diet of fast food is a bad idea, and no athlete is going to successfully convince them otherwise, says Heidi Boyd, a registered dietitian in Toronto.
"Sure, these athletes are role models, too, but at the end of the day, what they see their parents do day in and day out is what really sticks with kids and how they build their skills around food and eating," she says.
Since the Beijing Olympics last summer, more and more athletes have been touting fast food. U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte claimed he gobbled McDonald's fare regularly while visiting the Olympic city. Michael Phelps has been shilling Subway, whose sandwiches have been called a healthier fast food option, though very high in salt. Kids also took in reports of Mr. Phelps's 12,000-calorie-a-day diet.
While they haven't played the card just yet, Lily Brynaert bets her kids would say they should be allowed to regularly, or even ritually, gobble fast food if Mr. Bolt and Mr. Phelps are doing it.
Competitive swimmers at the Richmond Hill Aquatic Club, Veronica, 15, and Garrett, 13, go on the occasional junk food binges, but are well aware they must compensate with extra training and more nutritious meals, their mother says.
"They do look at the athletes as role models; they definitely absorb information as to what they do and don't do," Ms. Brynaert says.
But just because young athletes hold these superstars in high regard, they're not necessarily taking their dietary cues, says John Grootveld, head coach of the Toronto Swim Club, which trains competitive swimmers aged 5 to 25.
"I don't think the young kids are media-savvy enough in the sense that they're reading in detail what Usain Bolt is eating or what Michael Phelps is eating," he says. "If they were to hear those messages from those guys, I think for the most part they'd see it as an anomaly, not as the way to go."
The racer's McNugget-popping is likely more of a pre-game ritual than a staple of his daily diet, Mr. Grootveld notes. Swimmers at his club get sound nutritional advice and are steered away from pop and junk food while away on competitions, he says.
Still, young athletes are constantly plied with advertising for junk food, often pitched by their sports heroes, says Cara Kasdorf, a registered dietitian at the Grand River Sports Medicine Centre in Kitchener, Ont. They have to work hard to remember a healthy balanced diet is key to their success.
"It's hard not to hear those messages," she says. "But if you say, 'Try to view food as your fuel ... so you can have energy for your activities,' most kids find that they do feel better and they're able to do more in their sport."
While Ms. Brynaert wishes athletes would say more about the good things they eat, it's comforting for kids to see their role models are not dietary angels either, she says.
"When kids are athletes they're constantly practising, they're constantly eating because they're burning so many calories. [It's good] to know that once in a while if they do have 10 McNuggets, it's okay."
