High School Athletes and Creatine? My New Law Review Article on Dietary Supplements, Cognitive Biases, and Consumerism

In addition to sports law, my primary areas of legal scholarship pertain to food and drug law, consumer law, and behavioral law and economics. If you are interested, I just published a law review article in Boston University School of Law's American Journal of Law and Medicine. The article is entitled "Dietary Supplement Labeling: Cognitive Biases, Market Manipulation, and Consumer Choice." The article canvasses the dietary supplement industry, and explores how cognitive biases affect supplement consumers.

Among the consumers studied are high school athletes who consider the use of dietary supplements (most notably creatine), and how those athletes are influenced by professional athletes. Here are several excerpts:

[I]n the midst of the ephedra fallout, some dietary supplement manufacturers have adroitly utilized the “irrelevant third option effect,” whereby they market their products as “ephedra free” and thus of apparent less-risk. This is because when any seller introduces irrelevant options, a consumer typically becomes biased in favor of options that he originally disfavored. Indeed, by framing the choice between something dangerous, something much less risky, and no action at all, supplement manufacturers may encourage new or continued usage of supplements—much like the presence of “unfiltered” or “light” cigarettes encourages would-be quitters to continue smoking . . .

Specific data associated with the use of dietary supplements by children and adolescents illuminates their tendency to discount risk, particularly for student athletes. For instance, most college athletes who use ephedra products became dependent while playing sports in high school. It is thought that usage of ephedra and similar stimulants offers the “extra edge” to perform, improve skill level, or help one become more athletic; correspondingly, many younger users are motivated by peer pressure, or because of quixotic sports aspirations. Only reinforcing the availability and desirability of these stimulants are direct and aspirational observations of supplement usage. Indeed, children and adolescents may readily watch coaches, trainers, and teammates, as well as professional sports stars, use and promote usage of dietary supplements. By forecasting unrealistic benefits and depreciated risks, these impressions and pressures of dietary supplements merely exacerbate myth-believing and optimism bias among a particularly vulnerable group . . .

Perhaps more disturbing, usage of creatine and similar products may increase the likelihood of one later trying more toxic and illegal substances, such as anabolic steroids. Indeed, the availability of such substances may endorse a socially-permissive attitude towards use of external enhancements, which might encourage a more lenient attitude toward the use of steroids. Separately, consider the salience of the irrelevant third option effect in the creatine consumer model: by framing the choice between a steroid, creatine, and no enhancement, manufacturers of creatine products likely encourage would-be non-purchasers of steroids to purchase creatine.

The article also compares American and European models of consumerism, and proposes the prescription of new informational duties for supplement manufacturers that enhance consumer choice without deterring production. The article can be downloaded for free right beneath its abstract. I hope you get a chance to take a look at it, and would welcome any feedback in the comments section below, or by e-mail (mccann[at]post.harvard.edu).

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