There’s a few common things that makes holiday events similar to one another. Usually, there’s the gathering of friends and family. Another common point is also a big differentiation and that’s the type of food that’s consumed during those holidays.
With a holiday like Thanksgiving, there’s the November staples of turkey and cranberry sauce, mash potatoes, pumpkin pie and stuffing. No doubt the centerpiece for Christmas is the roasted chicken (or Christmas ham) we’ll typically have stuffing also and for better or worse, the fruitcake! Whatever the holiday, it’s a time to gorge ourselves.
Another event where friends and family get together where the type of food defines the event is the SuperBowl Sunday. With pizza, potato chips, salsa, beer, chicken wings, soda, french fries, Chex Mix, and guacamole, no doubt football is on the television.
Not to mention that the SuperBowl is soon after the new year; the same time of the year we promise ourselves to exercise more, watch our diets and think about the children. The SuperBowl is cruel in that it’s about a month after we make our new year resolutions.
Football and FOOD
The Super Bowl isn’t just a huge American sporting event, it’s a enormous eating event. It regards to empty calories, it’s outsizes Thanksgiving and Christmas. With fried, greasy, salty, fatty and sugary, it’ll outdo any barbeque on Independence Day and put to shame any bar-hopping frat party on a Friday night after midterm finals. When it comes to the SuperBowl, no event really compares to how badly we eat.
Amount of Food Eaten during the Super Bowl
On those 8-10 hours of the SuperBowl event (considering the pre and post game coverage) half of all Americans will squad up to consume 1.23 BILLION chicken wings during the Super Bowl. That’s a lot of chickens.
And that’s just chicken arms. If most retail stores make as much of 50% of their annual revenue during the holiday months, then pizza joints or sports bar will rake in a good ratio of their gross sales on SuperBowl Sunday when compared to any regular Sunday during college football season.
Let’s not forget the 211-325 million pints of burp-inducing beers that will be drunk, the 3936 tons of popcorn shoveled into mouths and 8 million pounds of guacamole dipped as reported by this graphic by Bwin
Considering there are approximately 83.9 calories per chicken wing and over 1,000 calories in a tub of popcorn, well that’s a ton of extra poundage we’re adding to the country’s collective waistline.
No doubt that we’re snackin’ all day during the Super Bowl. And we haven’t even talked about the sandwiches, burgers, cookies, hot dogs, bbq and other assorted dips and chips. If you’re not paying attention, you can brainlessly have snacked your way into 5000 calorie range in half a day. That’s right at double the average daily caloric intake (2500) for the average inactive adult male.
I’m not saying that the Super Bowl is to be solely blamed for the United States growing obesity epidemic beinng at an all-time high in 2016. But let’s be honest, it surely ain’t building good habits. The BMI of the U.S.A. is going into extra periods.
With all that sugary sauce and salt and gut-busting mac and cheese, are you feeling sick yet? If not, you’re one of the lucky ones, as approximately 6% more of the workforce calls off sick on the Monday after the Super Bowl than any other day in the year.
So wait a second, what’s so great about the SuperBowl again? Oh yeah, we watch it mainly for the funny Super Bowl ads.
