Donald Hooton Jr. from Taylor Hooton Foundation

Next Level Podcast with Host Tavis Piattoly, MS, RD, LD

Don Hooton, Jr.
President Taylor Hooton Foundation

Donald serves as President for the Taylor Hooton Foundation. In this capacity, Donald leads the effort to develop and promote education programs into middle schools, high schools and universities across the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

He, along with his father and other family members, founded the charity in 2004 just one year after the loss of his brother, Taylor Hooton, from anabolic steroid use. Donald is committed to preventing the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports among teens/young adults.

In This Episode You Will Learn:

1) An overview of the Taylor Hooton Foundation (THF) and the programs they offer to young athletes.

2) How the THF is leveraging their partnership with MLB and NFL ito expand their education programs.

3) Current statistics on the use of Steroids and Performance Enhancing Drugs in young athletes.

4) What can be done to stop or minimize the use of PED’s in young and professional athletes.

5) The growth of their program and how many athletes they educate each year.

6) Future projects of THF.

Podcast Notes

0:00 Tavis Piattoly Introduction

Special Guest: Donald Hooten
More Info: speakpipe.com/asktavis or email at support@mysportsdietitan.com.

1:57 Special Guest Background

Donald Hooton Junior is the vice president of education for the Taylor Hooton foundation. They focus on educating high school athletes about the potential dangers of dietary supplements.
Donald Junior talks about his journey and why this organization was founded.

3:02 How Foundation Started

Taylor lost his younger brother 10 years ago this July, after he and a bunch of his friends made the uneducated decision in high school to get into using performance enhancing drugs, specifically anabolic steroids. From there the Taylor Hooton Foundation was formed with hopes and dreams of educating kids.
There is a need in all of the United States, Canada, and Latin America for education on performance enhancing drugs.
Kids as young as seven have gotten their hands on steroids.
Great resources are available for athletes, one in particular is the chalk talk program

5:44 Chalk Talk Program

Chalk Talk program covers both the dietary supplements as well as anabolic steroids.
This approach allows for an understanding of what it is you're putting in your body. Some of this stuff comes from raw materials coming in from China, whether it's for the anabolic steroids or some of the dietary supplements. This program helps understand why kids want to go down that path.

7:42 Other Programs besides Hoots Chalk Talk Program

Check out www.taylorhooton.org. We have a wide variety of information you'll see on the website whether you want to specifically look at some of the stuff on the dietary supplements or get into some more depth on the anabolic steroids.

8:29 E-learning programs

Two different e-learning programs. One is a very in depth 3 hour course and we also have a 45 minute course that's available online.
On our website, you'll see a number of different videos of personal testimonies of people that these drugs have affected their lives.

9:18 Athlete Education number breakdown

Last year we reached about 175,000 people and a little over half a million in the past five or six years that we've actively been out doing education programs
Our goal is to reach over a million kids a year.
There's over 7 million high school athletes.
75,000 supplements on the market and continues to grow.

10:33 Most common questions

The most common questions that we receive are about dietary supplements in general.
Kids will come home, they're starving, they're back loading their calories late at night, but at the same time, they're looking for an answer outside of their diet because they don't think their diets are bad.
In reality, when we look at the surveys we've conducted, 86% of the athletes think their diets are good, but when they look at their diet, only about 50% have somewhat of a diet that might get them where they need to be.

13:58 Partnerships (MLB and NFL)

Partnered with Major League Baseball and the NFL
Statistics show that 85% of our kids have never had a parent, teacher, or coach talk with them about the dangers of performance enhancing drugs.

15:31 What should be done about illegal substances?

If there were stricter rules and came down a lot harder versus getting just a brief suspension, I think that would resonate a lot more with the athletes and maybe have them think two or three times before going down the behavior with illegal drugs.

18:00 Conversations Parents should have with their Athletes

Rather than having the discussion at the dinner table of should he or she get into the Hall of Fame, ask what do you think about the penalty policy or how long they should be suspended for.
We're talking about illegal drugs and it's a great teachable moment for our kids to talk about.
We need to be talking about jail time, not whether they should have an asterisk next to their name or even have the opportunity to get into a Hall of Fame.

18:58 Future Taylor Hooton Projects

We're always looking to present in front of various groups, as education is so important.
When people hear the information, they hear the message.
Many schools aren't providing this type of education to kids.
We received a grant in the state of Rhode Island, which is gonna allow us to go to all 55 high schools in the state to educate kids and student athletes.
We have been doing programs down in Latin America, Carousel, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.

20:44 How to get in touch with Taylor Hooton Foundation