Nancy Clark
, a nutritionist who writes a column for National Masters News called The Athlete’s Kitchen, has left a bad taste in the mouth of one reader. Her most recent article, in the January 2012 issue, focuses on “Where to find quality sports nutrition information.” She starts with “five excellent” websites, and leads with The
Gatorade Sports Science Institute,
PowerBar’s site and Nestle, the PowerBar parent company.” Uh oh, said the reader, who wrote me: “Not only are they biased, [but] Nancy is a paid consultant for at least one of them. She sits in the Powerbar booth at the NYC Marathon expo. As she noted in her column, ‘many runners ask me where they can find reliable sports nutrition information.’ So much for credibility, trustworthiness and transparency.” Nancy can write anything she wants, I say. But by not disclosing her
affiliation with PowerBar, she appears a shill for Nestle. Not sweet.
10 Responses
I believe that a person of Nancy’s credibility would not represent a company or product either directly or indirectly unless she believed it to be the best. And since it IS her advice I seek, I’m pleased to know she stands by what she judges to be the best. If she got a million bucks to sit at their booth it might be a little different.
I wrote an article for Running Times a couple years ago that explained how to train our different types of muscle fiber. When the article was published, my running club’s sponsor contacted me to express their disappointment that I hadn’t mentioned their product and its effect on muscle fiber.
Suffice to say, I was annoyed. The article was about specific training methods, not about products that may or may not have an additional impact on fiber development. I let my sponsor know in no uncertain terms that any further attempt to influence my writing in my role as a journalist would dictate an immediate end to our relationship.
I also told them that, on the other hand, in my role as an athlete with a sponsor, I would always work their product into any interview or comments I made about my and my team’s racing.
Right now, we’re sponsored by Compex, makers of an incredible over-the-counter electric stimulation machine that can aid in recovery from training, is an integral part of any injury rehab program, and is also successful at building muscle. Some of my guys have even made it a mainstay of their warm-up! (See how I did that.)
But don’t look for the Compex machine in any of my Running Times columns (or, if I was asked to write an article on electric stim machines, don’t look for Compex without a disclaimer as to my connection with the company). That wouldn’t just be bad journalism. It wouldn’t be journalism at all.
Asking Nancy Clark to be as pure as the driven snow is a bit over the top. She has a long established career as a sports nutritionist. I agree with Bubba – – unless she gets millions and my guess is she gets not much from PowerBar. Calling her a shill for Nestle seems a bit much.
Eugene to Host World Youth Champs
Since “Running Times” was mentioned I cannot resist to quote a News message from that magazin.
“It was announced last week that Eugene would host the 2014 IAAF World Youth Championships. This marks the first time since 1992 that a world championships of any level will be held on U.S. soil. No other candidate cities submitted final bids to host this meet.”
The magazine does not seem to recognize the World Masters Championships in Sacramento earlier this year. Where did the soil come from?
RE: IAAF World Youth Championships. I am very surprised to see a back-to-back host in North America, with Moncton, NB back in 2010.
We have an article Nancy Clarke wrote on Gluten- Free nutrition posted on our refrigerator. Most comprehensive and easy to follow article we have seen dealing with the issues of Gluten. It has been very helpful in our lives. It doesn’t necessarily address the/an issue of the posting, but if she reads the comments here – it is just possibly an opportunity to thank her.
The practice is called “payola”, or “plugola”, and there are federal laws against it if it’s done on TV or radio. It may be her heartfelt advice, but by not disclosing the financial relationship with those she is endorsing, she has tarnished her reputation.
Here is a link to a recent, similar example.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2016979686_tvads11.html
I think the negative tone of this article as well as some of the responses reflects our current culture of expecting the worst from people. For what its worth I am an associate professor in exercise science and I really value the Gatorade sports science website. Could some of the info be biased? Sure. Does that mean you should dismiss the whole website? Not to me. In fact, if you are in my age group and run the sprints then I hope you will dismiss because that will put me one up on you.
Why not look at it and take it for what its worth?
Kinda reminds of the joke about the two kids, a pessimist and an optimist locked in a room of horse manure. The pessimist says “Uggg, horse manure! Get me out of here.” The optimist says “Hmmm… lots of manure. Must be a pony in here somewhere!” Why not trying looking for the pony Ken? I really value MastersTrack but your tone is often so negative its really depressing.
Cheers,
Jim
No doubt that Nancy believes PowerBar to be a high quality product otherwise she would not represent them. But the dollar amount doesn’t matter –she absolutely needs to disclose her affiliation with them. Ken, have you contacted her on this? I wonder what her response would be.
I want to add a quick addendum to my comment above: I didn’t write my comment to slam Nancy Clark. I don’t know Nancy, and I have no idea of the particulars surrounding her writing or her affiliation with Powerbar.
Instead, I just instantly thought of my own experience dealing with dual roles as sponsored athlete and journalist – and then shared that.
Sometimes (in posting to sites like this) I type before I think things through, and it was bad form for me to post something which seems to judge Nancy when I really don’t know a darn thing about her situation.
So apologies to Nancy!
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