Should a Fast Food Company Be Sponsoring the Olympics?

Maybe hamburgers and athletics don’t go together after all. While global fast food empire McDonald's has just built its largest outlet ever in London’s Olympic Park, even the International Olympic Committee is now questioning whether the company makes a suitable sponsor for the world’s largest sporting event. Interviewed in the Financial Times this past weekend, IOC president Jacques Rogge admitted there was a "question mark" over the courting of unhealthy fast food purveyors as Olympic sponsors, acknowledging public unease at how rare it feels nowadays to view a major sporting event without seeing adverts for junk plastered all over it.

Rogge’s comments come on the back of a McDonald’s-bashing motion recently passed in the London Assembly, the British capital’s main governing body. Proposed by Green Party leader Jenny Jones – who gained record votes to become London’s third choice for mayor in May – the motion called for a ban on sporting sponsors that are linked to childhood obesity. The motion’s supporters pointed out that while TV ads for unhealthy food aimed at children are forbidden in Britain, daytime Olympic coverage full of McDonald's and Coca-Cola logos could break this ban via the back door.