Boxer Mike Tyson's MAHA Super Bowl Ad Sparks Online Debate

Move over, MAHA moms: legendary boxer Mike Tyson is the next to join the "Make America Healthy Again" movement. Yes, the disgraced boxing legend, who embarrassed himself in a money-making Netflix special against influencer Jake Paul, continued a career's worth of bad decisions and fat-shamed Americans on the biggest television stage of the year.

What could have been a profoundly touching and inspiring call to action is instead being talked about for all of the wrong reasons.

While health influencers and the like are jumping on the media attention that Tyson's ad is receiving in order to keep their own names in social media users' newsfeeds, many others recognize that the language Tyson used is not conducive to a healthier and more accepting America.

Continue reading to learn more about Tyson's MAHA commercial that aired during the Super Bowl, as well as what the fallout has been in the hours after the advertisement was broadcast.

As POLITICO reported prior to the Super Bowl, Mike Tyson partnered with the nonprofit MAHA Center to encourage viewers to "eat real food," a mantra echoed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"The most important fight of my life isn’t in the ring," Tyson wrote in support of the commercial, which he posted to his Instagram. "I’m not fighting for a belt. I’m fighting for our health. Processed foods are killing us. We have been lied to and we need to eat real food again."

Tyson said during the commercial, "We’re the most powerful country in the world, and we have the most obese, fudgy people.”

Tyson explained at the beginning of the commercial that he lost his sister to obesity. According to an archived story in the Los Angeles Times, Tyson's sister, Denise Anderson, died of a heart attack on Feb. 21, 1990, at the age of 24.

"I was so fat and nasty, I would eat anything," Tyson reveals in the commercial. "I was like, 345 pounds. A quart of ice cream every hour. I had so much self-hate...I just wanted to kill myself."

While some social media influencers weren't yet born when Tyson was convicted in 1992 for raping 18-year-old Desiree Washington, some social media users referenced his past while criticizing the commercial.

"Why is Mike Tyson in a commercial talking about 'obesity is this country’s biggest problem[?]' NO...ITS ABUSERS LIKE YOU THAT IS THE PROBLEM," tweeted journalist Alexis Oatman.

Tyson concludes the commercial by biting into an apple and moaning, reiterating MAHA talking points, and biting into the apple once more.

While Tyson demonizes Americans and fear-mongers over processed foods, an actual public health expert and Olympic medalist, Dotsie Bausch, told Green Matters exclusively that a plant-based diet is the one that Americans should focus on following.

"I’ve spent my life proving on the world’s biggest athletic stage that performance, health, and longevity are built on plant-based foods, not meat and dairy," Bausch told Green Matters following the publication of the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which she previously successfully campaigned to include soy milk as a recommended beverage and alternative to cow's milk.

"What truly matters is policy that protects choice, equity, and science, and on that front, we are moving forward."