For faster injury recovery, say no to fizzy drinks, alcohol

Alcohol suppresses your body's antioxidant defences and fizzy drinks cause energy crashes making recovery slow

- Shrenik Avlani

When sporting heroes and celebrities do something, they inspire common folk to do the same. That's how 10-year-old Arjun Mehta gave up junk food two years ago after meeting his hero Sunil Chhetri, Indian football's highest goal scorer, at a football camp. "I want to play football like Chhetri. When he told us at the camp that he doesn't eat junk food, I told my parents that I too wouldn't eat junk food anymore. It's been two years since I ate chips, Maggi, biscuits or other similar food," says Mehta, who plays football for his school team in Mumbai. Such behavioural changes inspired by a role model are backed up by plenty of research. Findings of a 2023 study, Celebrity Endorsements in Public Health Campaigns, revealed that exposure to celebrity-endorsed messages led to increased awareness and intention to engage in healthy behaviours.

Now, as the football season winds down and the English cricket season begins, many sports stars have publicly adopted healthier habits. The English Test cricket captain Ben Stokes recently said he had given up drinking in order to recover faster and more robustly from his hamstring injury. Elsewhere in the sporting world, Manchester United's Moroccan defender Noussair Mazraoui revealed that he has stopped consuming fizzy drinks and that it has made a huge difference to his energy levels and the way he feels. If one is to follow Stokes and Mazraoui, it's time to say goodbye to all the rum-colas, gin-tonics and vodka-lemonades...and it certainly means no more Batangas (tequila-cola-lime) at Soka in Bengaluru.