Professional paper
Media approach to the obesity problem
Nina Svjetlanović
; School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, School of Public Health "A. Štampar", Rockefellerova 4, Zagreb
Slavica Sović
; School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, School of Public Health "A. Štampar", Rockefellerova 4, Zagreb
Ksenija Vitale
orcid.org/0000-0002-9842-8122
; School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, School of Public Health "A. Štampar", Rockefellerova 4, Zagreb
Abstract
SUMMARY
Obesity has become a popular topic in printed media, it affects both our health and our
psyche. Various media content can further have an effect on obesity be it positive or negative. Through
this research paper we wanted to examine what percentage of content is made up of health and/or
obesity related articles in the daily newspaper edition of Jutarnji list as well as its added supplements to
see whether or not we can improve their representation. 19 editions of the daily newspaper were
analysed and 5 of its' supplements through the duration of one year, January through December of 2014
to get six constructed weeks through the system of constructed week sampling. Overall articles and
advertisements were counted and out of those the amount of health and/or obesity articles and
advertisements were further extracted and counted using health and/or obesity key words. We further
subdivided the category of obesity into subcategories: advertisements, celebrities, health and other (all
articles that could not constituate the first three subcategories but contained health/obesity key words).
We also further subdivided health into subcategories of bodily systems. Articles constituted 81% of the
daily newspaper with the added supplements while advertisements made up for 19%. Of these only 5,2%
represented health while 1,23% represented obesity. Under the subheading of obesity health had the
largest portion of articles with 37,2% or 16/3478 (0,46% of total items). Subheadings celebrities
constituted 25,6% (0,32% total items), while subheadings advertisements and 'other' with 18,6% or
0,23% of total items, equally. Overall health had 118 articles while health-other (without obesity or
celebrities) contained 97 articles that were divided into subcategories of reproduction, dermatology and
cardiovascular disease each with 5,9% of all articles on health or 7/3478 (0,2%) total items. Cancer,
paediatrics, muscular-skeletal system, metabolism/endocrine and aesthetics comprised 3,39% (0,12%
total items). Food 6,78% (0,23% total items). Respiratory and gastrointestinal systems 4,24% (0,14%
total items). CNS 2,54% (0,09% total items). Mixed content 5,08% (0,17% total items). Psychiatry
8,47% (0,29% total items). Infections constituted the highest portion of health with 18,64% or 0,63% of
total items, while the immune system had the least amount of articles with 1,69% or 0,06% total items.
Health and obesity are not representative factors in the daily newspaper editions with
supplements of Jutarnji list due to the fact that only 5,2% of articles are health based while 1,23% are
obesity based. It is important to find and represent content that readers can easily identify with.
Analysing newspapers could give insight into what falls under 'normal' in the Croatian region and what
of that 'normal' content could be used to promote certain health aspects that would further eradicate
obesity, improve overall health and support future public health campaigns. For future research papers
on this topic it would be interesting to see the correlation between the amount of content represented
and/or versus its impact factor. We could also investigate whether or not we could, in future, use this
impact factor to make up for a small amount of articles on obesity in newspapers and print media.
Keywords
obesity, health, daily editions, weekly supplements.
Hrčak ID:
299079
URI
Publication date:
7.1.2017.
Visits: 501 *