A Media Content Analysis to Examine Print News Coverage of Obesity Across CDC-Funded Communities

Background: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funds state/local governments, tribes, territories, and nonprofit organizations to reduce chronic diseases and achieve health equity. Awardees focus on tobacco-free living, active living and healthy eating, clinical-community preventive services (high blood pressure, high cholesterol), social and emotional wellness, and healthy/safe physical environments.

Methods: A content analysis was conducted to examine the conversation around overweight/obesity in the print news media for awardees from June 2011–May 2013. A search-string related to obesity, nutrition, and physical activity was created to search the Nexis database of news stories. Initial coding included the publication, section, date, length, and primary focus. Articles primarily focused on overweight/obesity were further coded for tone, populations, causes and solutions of overweight/obesity, and economic consequences, if mentioned.

Results: The search returned 1,797 print articles that were coded.  Preliminary results showed overweight/obesity was the primary focus for the majority of articles (n=1,119; 62%); the remainder only mentioned the topic (n=623; 35%) or were considered off-topic (n=55; 3%). Among articles with a primary focus on overweight/obesity, over 70% of the articles mentioned children, 44% described obesity as an “epidemic,” and 10% described obesity as “preventable.” Sixty-five percent of these articles (n=728) mentioned at least one cause of overweight/obesity, while 93% (n=1,037) mentioned at least one solution.

Conclusions: These initial findings confirm obesity/overweight are topics of interest to newspapers.  The results also provide insight into how newspapers frame overweight/obesity, and may help CDC awardees better target their earned media efforts.