If you’ve been following the Beijing Olympics you can’t fail to have noticed one Michael Phelps. The American swimming sensation has become the greatest Olympian of all time and surpassed Mark Spitz’s record of seven golds with a haul of eight.

What you may not know is Phelps’ diet consists of a calorie intake that would sustain five men. But then five men might not have the punishing training regime of an Olympic swimmer.

Phelps eats 10,000 calories per day, a staggering amount but when you consider what that consists of you can see why. For breakfast it’s three fried egg sandwiches (each containing cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions and mayonnaise) followed by three chocolate-chip pancakes; a five-egg omelette; three sugar-coated slices of French toast and a bowl of porridge.

Lunch is the best part of a half a kilogram of pasta along with two large ham, cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches on white bread. Dinner is the same truck load of pasta plus pizza and energy drinks. The calorie count is sufficient for what he burns off during training but nutritionists would certainly look to make improvements to the ingredients used. Cut out the egg yolks, replace white bread with whole-wheat and a few fruit and veg might not go amiss, Michael?

Now a row has erupted concerning Phelps’ lucrative new deal with cereal manufacturer Kelloggs. He’ll become the new face for Frosties in the US (called Frosted Flakes) and that has attracted the attention of nutritional experts. Given the rising rate of obese and diabetic children not only in America but the UK also, is it right for an athlete of his stature to promote sugary processed foods?

Clearly Tony the Tiger’s sugar flaked cereal is not the breakfast of champions as processed sugary foods are known to cause disease and nutritional deficiencies. But then Phelps is doing nothing wrong legally. The question is whether a role model should be promoting foods that are, in part, causing a nation to suffer poor health.

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