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Obesity as a “self-regulated epidemic”: coverage of obesity in Chinese newspapers

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Abstract

Objective

The aim of this study was to investigate how obesity was covered in Chinese newspapers from 1999 to 2018, demonstrating the trends and the characteristics of obesity-related news.

Methods

Content analysis was conducted to analyze a total of 358 news articles spanning two decades (1999–2018). We explored how Chinese newspapers portrayed obesity in terms of the evidence/sources cited in articles, its impacts, drivers/causes, and solutions; and how such portrayals have evolved over time. We further compared the articles across different types of newspapers (government-sponsored vs. commercial), two subpopulations (children vs. adults), and periods of time (1999–2008 vs. 2009–2018).

Results

Results showed that medical experts’ interviews and statistics were the two most cited types of evidence in the articles. When discussing causes and solutions of obesity, factors pertaining to personal lifestyles were mentioned most frequently. Compared to psychological and social impacts, physical health risk was stressed more often. Compared with commercial newspapers, government-funded newspapers mentioned societal drivers of obesity and suggested reforming schools more frequently. Such differences were also found between coverage of child obesity and adult obesity. Our research, furthermore, revealed significant differences of media coverage of obesity across the two decades.

Conclusions

Our findings indicate that obesity was generally depicted as a “self-regulated epidemic” in Chinese newspapers. Although the revealed causes and consequences of obesity are evidently related to individual factors, more attention should be directed to the roles that the government, media, and the society can play in preventing obesity and mitigating related social/economic burden.

Level of evidence

Level V, cross-sectional descriptive study.

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Funding

This research was partially supported by the Presidential Fund of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, to Jinbo He (Grant number: PF.01.001428) and Xitao Fan (Grant number: PF.01.000670).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Journalism, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Shaojing Sun, Bin Shen, Yibei Chen & Xiaohui Yang

  2. School of Humanities and Social Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, China

    Jinbo He & Xitao Fan

Authors
  1. Shaojing Sun
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  2. Jinbo He
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  3. Bin Shen
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  4. Xitao Fan
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  5. Yibei Chen
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Contributions

SS participated the study design, led the data collection, performed the statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript. BS helped to draft the manuscript. JH led the study design, helped data collection, led the results interpretation, and helped draft the manuscript. XF helped to draft the manuscript. YC participated in the interpretation of the data and helped draft the manuscript. XY participated in data collection and helped draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jinbo He or Bin Shen.

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Sun, S., He, J., Shen, B. et al. Obesity as a “self-regulated epidemic”: coverage of obesity in Chinese newspapers. Eat Weight Disord 26, 569–584 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-020-00886-8

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