The Mike Tyson Super Bowl ad is a public health failure

Lessons Learned From Super Bowl 2026 Ad Lineup: Online Gambling Is Super Cool, Just Ask Kendall Jenner, And Coinbase Is Really Fun — Are You Sure You Didn’t Love It Rickroll Style Karaoke Venue? Beloved ’90s celebrities, aged to look like their 20s again, absolutely love Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, so you should drink it too. Oh, and also, being fat makes you want to kill yourself.

It was a stark black-and-white ad, dramatically framed to center the tattooed face of former boxing titan Mike Tyson. Tyson kicks off the commercial by telling us that his sister Denise “died of obesity” at just 25 years old. It was a heart attack, he adds. Dramatic cut to his clasped hands. “I was so big and bad,” Tyson tells the camera, his sister’s story only conveying its own message. “I would eat anything. I weighed about 345 pounds.” The music swells. “I had so much self-hatred when I was like that. I just wanted to kill myself.” He bites into a carrot, then into an apple. He tells Americans, probably only half-listening as they enjoy decadent dips and spicy wings with their loved ones, that we are still a bunch of obese, “fuzzy” people despite being the most powerful country in the world.

Did you know that powerful people are all fit and skinny, and that our physical appearance makes our country’s actions morally defensible? Wait, isn’t that the point? What’s the point? “Processed foods kill,” the screen reads. Oh.

We viewers are already inundated with incessant advertisements for GLP-1 drugs peddled by former body positivity icons like Serena Williamsgrab a bite of our burgers and a sip of our beers, which are also sold to us ad nauseam during the live broadcast. This PSA makes these other ads look extremely compassionate.

The announcement was directed by Brett Ratner — the Hollywood creator recently criticized for making the Amazon-funded Melania Trump documentary, as well as its connection to epstein files – and seems to ignore the fact that the former heavyweight is a convicted rapist and attacker. It was financed by the Making Americans Healthy Again initiative, the brainchild of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Kennedy is a man known for having found a worm in his brain and spewing mind-boggling medical claims, including the idea that Tylenol “causes” autism and that COVID-19 was a biological weapon designed to target specific races.

It’s not news that fat people are collectively under attack by the US government.

The administration has its own ties to tech billionaires, many of whom have invested heavily in the sector. wellness area and influencers who peddle alternative sciences and fad diets. Head of the MAHA Centre, Tony Lyons, said they solicited an undisclosed number of billionaires to fund the PSA. If you go to the official RealFood.gov website – linked at the end of the PSA and now rebranded with creepy black-and-white text and Tyson’s image – you’ll encounter an AI chatbot not too far away. It is designed to help Americans learn about “real food.”

MAHA claims to be tackling the “childhood chronic disease crisis” and health concerns nationwide with what medical experts have noted: Unfounded, conspiracy-based “scientific” behavior.“Under Kennedy, MAHA’s strategy included eschewing decades of medical research, diminishing vaccine infrastructure, shrinking the nation’s health agencies, and even rethinking the standard food pyramid. He also decided that obese people were a national scourge.

Credit: screenshot Mashable / HHS / realfood.gov

He chose to invest instead in the ideals of the manosphere, promoting hypermasculine and fitness-based solutions for mental and physical health. So it’s remarkable that MAHA chose the boxer, of all people, to be the face of the ‘real food’ movement, says Jessica Wilson, clinical dietitian, MAHA critic and show host Make things awkward podcast. Wilson points to statements by Kennedy and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth equating obesity with lack of military preparation.

Online, the MAHA crowd rallied for the spot, writing that it was “declare WAR on obesity“But professionals know that this is not the way to promote healthy eating, even if that was MAHA’s goal.

“A Super Bowl ad sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services used unframed suicidal ideation, demeaning language about weight, and moralized food rhetoric, then HHS Secretary RFK Jr.’s official Government X account amplified it with an AI-generated image and a vague slogan,” wrote Dr. Zachary Rubin, allergist and online creator known for debunking viral medical myths and his advice. “This is not just an ‘edgy’ message. This is a failure of public health ethics.”

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Tyson is well known for his unconventional diet, but one that involves training his opponents’ appendages, not “a pint of ice cream every hour” as the advertising suggests. Users couldn’t understand why the athlete was the face of the PSA — when was Tyson ever known for being quintessentially overweight? And what is he really asking us all to do? There is no call to action, no recognition of the corporate interests that have siled access to processed foods over whole foods. It does not promote federal food programs or address the health and economic disparities that lead to widespread nutritional deficiencies among Americans. It also ignores that weight is not the only determinant of health and reinforces the idea that obesity is inherently fatal. It’s not.

“Nothing in this ad was about improving people’s health. It was more about conforming to a certain body type,” says Tigress Osborn, executive director of the association. National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA). “People deserve meaningful health care, regardless of their body, mental and physical health care. Instead, it’s about using anti-fat to fan the flames of emotion.”

In fact, a message of hatred towards fat people that costs millions.

“The demand for conformity to a particular aesthetic and acceptable body type goes hand in hand with fascism and nationalism,” says Osborn. “We see these tactics being used in government and in public policy. It’s not news that fat people are collectively attacked by the U.S. government.”

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Treating people with larger bodies as a monolith, rather than individuals with individual health journeys, the ad takes advantage of a precarious online media moment, in which users face a barrage of fatphobic content and weight-loss ads that use celebrities to sell products.

“If they cared about the health of Americans,” Wilson says, “they wouldn’t put a sex offender as the face of their Super Bowl commercial and their official website. This is absolutely inconsistent with the desire to increase or improve the health of Americans and children. As clinical dietitians and health care professionals know, trauma, including sexual abuse, will lead to unhealthy children.”

The message of Mike Tyson’s PSA lays it all out on the table, served alongside the processed foods we’re pressured to eat on Super Bowl Sunday: You need to be skinny, and if you’re not, shame on you.

If you would like to talk to someone about your eating behavior, text “NEDA” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected with a trained volunteer or visit the National Eating Disorder Association. website for more information.

If you are feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, talk to someone. You can call or text 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline to 988, or chat on988lifeline.org. You can reach Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text “START” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI Helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday – Friday 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or by email. [email protected]. If you don’t like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Survival Chat. Here is a list of international resources.