Andrew Bogut’s odd claim that drinking a couple of beers each night has helped him to trim down is predicted to inspire a whole bunch of local athletes to drink more of the amber beverage. Bogut made the comments following his recent return to the NBA, as former teammates suggested that he looked trimmer in his unlikely return to the world’s best basketball league.

Speaking about his return to Australia, and spending a season playing for the Sydney Kings, Bogut said, “Honestly, man, when I got back to Australia, I introduced a whole lot more beer to my diet. So maybe that worked. I have one or two beers with the family at night.” This delicious little snippet was too good to ignore, with media outlets running with the whole “beer = weight loss” narrative.

While local nutritionist Belinda Donnelli stopped short of condemning Bogut’s remarks, she did say that such comments from prominent athletes often led to amateur sportspeople following the instructions quite closely. Donnelli said, “These kinds of comments definitely spark copycat behaviour. No doubt. If I was the coach of a local sports team, I’d be keeping a closer eye on my charges over the next few months. Maybe don’t sift through their recycling bins, but I’d be asking the occasional hydration questions, that’s for sure.”

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