The political construction of public health nutrition problems: a framing analysis of parliamentary debates on junk-food marketing to children in Australia

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec id="S1368980019003628_as1" sec-type="other"><jats:title>Objective:</jats:title><jats:p>Junk-food marketing contributes significantly to childhood obesity, which in turn imposes major health and economic burdens. Despite this, political priority for addressing junk-food marketing has been weak in many countries. Competing interests, worldviews and beliefs of stakeholders involved with the issue contribute to this political inertia. An integral group of actors for driving policy change are parliamentarians, who champion policy and enact legislation. However, how parliamentarians interpret and portray (i.e. frame) the causes and solutions of public health nutrition problems is poorly understood. The present study aimed to understand how Australian parliamentarians from different political parties frame the problem of junk-food marketing.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S1368980019003628_as2" sec-type="other"><jats:title>Design:</jats:title><jats:p>Framing analysis of transcripts from the Australian Government’s Parliamentary Hansard, involving development of a theoretical framework, data collection, coding transcripts and thematic synthesis of results.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S1368980019003628_as3" sec-type="other"><jats:title>Settings:</jats:title><jats:p>Australia.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S1368980019003628_as4" sec-type="other"><jats:title>Participants:</jats:title><jats:p>None.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S1368980019003628_as5" sec-type="other"><jats:title>Results:</jats:title><jats:p>Parliamentarian framing generally reflected political party ideology. Liberal parliamentarians called for minimal government regulation and greater personal responsibility, reflecting the party’s core values of liberalism and neoliberalism. Greens parliamentarians framed the issue as systemic, highlighting the need for government intervention and reflecting the core party value of social justice. Labor parliamentarians used both frames at varying times.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S1368980019003628_as6" sec-type="other"><jats:title>Conclusions:</jats:title><jats:p>Parliamentarians’ framing was generally consistent with their party ideology, though subject to changes over time. This project provides insights into the role of framing and ideology in shaping public health policy responses and may inform communication strategies for nutrition advocates. Advocates might consider using frames that resonate with the ideologies of different political parties and adapting these over time.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Framing analysis: its usefulness as a tool for advocacy on public health nutrition problems

“…Framing analysis for public health nutrition problems is needed to move beyond the creation of crude stereotypes of proponents' and opponents' views and the development of trite social marketing slogans. However, it appears from the papers of Russell et al (9) , Baker et al (11) and our own earlier work that as health scholars we tend more to the 'frames' than the 'framing'. When we ask public health 'to frame' (verb), it means 'using better frames' (noun).…”

“…From their findings, Russell and colleagues emphasise the consensus view that childhood obesity is harmful as a starting point for public health nutrition advocates wishing to frame their own messages. Rather than go further, they conclude with a hopeful message to the health advocate that if one could just get the frame 'right,' policy makers would be more likely to respond to this policy problem (9) .…”

“…The 'childhood obesity problem' is one of interest to public health nutrition specialists who seek better tools to advance healthy public policy to mitigate its harms. To this end, Russell and colleagues offer a concrete and effective application of framing analysis in their paper, 'The political construction of public health nutrition problems: a framing analysis of parliamentary debates on junk-food advertising to children in Australia' (9) . Their study applies framing theory and methods to examine healthy public policy through legislative debate on the topic of food and beverage advertising prohibitions directed at children.…”

“…Their findings show that political parties share a common understanding of the harms of childhood obesity, and thus the harm message should be incorporated into advocacy activities. However, they also identify constraints to persuasive messaging because parliamentarians' framing of the issue of junk-food advertising to children varies by party values and ideology regarding childhood obesity (i.e., an individual child/parental supervision problem v. a food environment problem), and whether they are in government or opposition (9) . This is despite a strong evidencebased literature implicating such advertising as at least partially causal of increased childhood obesity.…”

“…However, after publishing a series of framing studies of HFI in Canada to discern how the problem is understood and solutions posited (13) , what legislation has been tabled in the name of HFI (14) , why the problem has become intractable (15) , the role of political rhetoric (12) and valence of the idea of HFI (16) , we are now more circumspect that one can actively (i.e., cognitively) reframe the issue for policy change (5,16) . Russell et al also add the caveat that further research is needed to develop framing strategies, calling for participatory and action-oriented research with advocates themselves (9) .…”