Cricket Australia is coming under pressure from obesity experts to drop its KFC sponsorship.
In a letter to the Medical Journal of Australia, obesity experts Stephen Colagiuri and Ian D Caterson state that they were "alarmed by the sight of our Australian cricketers prominently badged with the logo of the fast food giant KFC" during a recent series against India.
Colagiuri and Caterson are scathing in their review of the fried chicken company's food, and maintain that it is an unhealthy image for a body in such a position as Cricket Australia to promote.
"The enthusiastic encouragement of unhealthy and undesirable eating habits should have no place in sporting sponsorship," they write.
KFC have enjoyed a prominent association with Cricket Australia in recent years, most notably with badging on players' uniforms, sponsoring of the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash domestic competition and Twenty20 international matches. Their advertising campaign also includes TV commercials featuring Australian players with dubbed voices, and promotion of the Stick Cricket Web site in an effort to become synonymous with cricket.
Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young defended the association.
"We're very grateful for the support they provide us, and the support they provide us along with the support we get from other sponsors helps us keep cricket on the local ovals, in school grounds, and at an elite level it helps us keep our international teams in the field as well," Young said.
"The important thing is to take a balanced approach to nutrition, to physical activity and to treat things like KFC as an occasional treat," he added.
Very occasional, according to Colagiuri and Caterson.
"We have shown that even one common KFC meal per week can adversely affect recommended healthy diets. It is ironic and regrettable that Cricket Australia, while having done so much for the sport, encourages the promotion of unhealthy, high-fat, highcalorie KFC products that negate the benefit of increased physical activity associated with playing cricket."
