Fit to Print: A Natural History of Obesity Research in the Canadian News Media

Abstract

This natural-history approach to investigating media reports concerning health can reveal the complex process whereby health research becomes news. Using television and newspaper reports of a press event taken from a larger project, this article examines the inception and mediation of obesity research in the Canadian news media. By exploring questionnaire data, a media release, telephone interviews with journalists, and news reports, we can better understand the meaning making that occurs at all levels in the communications process. We conclude that there is an interdependent and possibly problematic relationship between health sources and journalists that shapes the inception and mediation of obesity research and the translation of health research to the public.Keywords: Cultural studies; Media/mass media; Newspapers Résumé : Cette approche, qui a recours à l'histoire naturelle pour investiguer les reportages sur la santé, peut révéler le processus complexe selon lequel la recherche dans le domaine de la santé devient une nouvelle. En utilisant des reportages de télévision et de journaux sur un événement de presse provenant d'un plus grand projet, cet article examine l'origine et la médiation de la recherche sur l'obésité dans les médias canadiens. Au moyen de données de questionnaire, d'un communiqué de presse, d'entrevues téléphoniques avec des journalistes et de rapports de nouvelles, nous pouvons mieux comprendre la création de sens qui a lieu à tous les niveaux du processus de communication. Nous concluons qu'il y a un rapport d'interdépendance peut-être problématique entre les experts en santé et les journalistes qui influence l'orientation et la médi-ation de la recherche sur l'obésité et la présentation au public de la recherche dans le domaine de la santé.

Public Health Framing of News Regarding Childhood Obesity in the United States

“…This finding contrasts with Iyengar's research, in which episodic framing dominated news coverage of social ills. Roy, Faulkner, and Finlay (2007) and Sandberg (2007) identified similar framing patterns in Canadian and Swedish newspapers, respectively. That is, the manner in which news regarding childhood obesity was presented tended to identify individual-level (e.g., increased consumption of junk food, decreased physical activity) behavior and concerns (e.g., women's desire to be physically attractive to men) as germane, discouraging societal-level action to address the problem.…”

“…One consistent finding in the extant literature is that the manner in which obesity has been framed encourages the perception that the responsibility for obesity rests with the individual, not with society as a whole (Kim & Willis, 2007;Lawrence, 2004;Roy, Faulkner, & Finlay, 2007). Clearly, this perception may lead to significant consequences for public policy, as well as for individual action.…”

In the Face of Critique

“…From this sample, we identified 14 distinct metathemes and 49 subthemes ( Table 3) that could be further organized into four taxonomic categories (Table 4). An important result of the metasynthesis showed that this sample of qualitative research intensely focused on story construction elements, despite arguments calling for a shift from assessing only content production (e.g., text; see Roy et al, 2007) to more widely understanding health and science journalism through the perspective of journalists. Here it was sourcing practices that played a particularly dominant role in the identified studies.…”

How the Spanish press frames obesity: A study of content published by El País, La Vanguardia, and El Correo in 2015

“…Some studies have examined media reporting on obesity from other angles. Roy et al (2007) have explored the ‘interdependent and possibly problematic’ (p. 575) relationships between Canadian journalists and sources that influence how the media cover research on obesity.…”