Research Results Other Policy and Environmental Strategies
| Other Policy and Environmental Strategies |
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Title: News Media Framing of Childhood Obesity in the United States from 2000 to 2009
RWJF Grant ID: 68051
Principal Investigator: Colleen Barry, PhD, MPP
Organization: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (formerly Yale University) Results: This article assesses how the news media framed the causes of childhood obesity and potential solutions to the problem over a ten-year period (2000-2009). Researchers found that by 2003, childhood obesity was on the news media’s agenda and remained so until 2007, after which coverage decreased. Overall, news stories were equally likely to attribute childhood obesity to individual behavioral habits and system-level causes such as socioeconomic or food industry related factors. However, news magazines were significantly more likely to mention individual causes compared with television news. News stories consistently mentioned behavioral change most often as a solution to obesity, but television news reports were significantly more likely to mention behavior change compared with newspapers, which more often mentioned system-level solutions to the problem of obesity. Title: Simulation Models of Obesity: A Review of the Literature and Implications for Research and Policy
RWJF Grant ID: 63048
Principal Investigator: David Levy, PhD
Organization: H.B.S.A., Inc.
Results: The article presents an overview of existing simulation models (SMs) for obesity, discusses their strengths and weaknesses and suggests directions for future research. The authors conclude that SMs can serve as a summary of knowledge and a structure for improving knowledge and understanding of the complex factors contributing to obesity.
Title: Obesity Metaphors: How Beliefs about the Causes of Obesity Affect Support for Public Policy
RWJF Grant ID: 65055
Principal Investigator: Colleen Barry, PhD, MPP
Organization: Yale University School of Medicine
Results: Using the Yale Rudd Center Public Opinion on Obesity Survey, this study examines how individuals' demographic/health characteristics, political attitudes and beliefs about the causes of obesity affect their support for obesity-reduction policies. Included in the study were seven obesity metaphors; how much respondents' agreed with or used these metaphors was strongly predictive of whether they supported public policy to reduce obesity rates. In light of these results, the authors suggest that metaphorical reasoning could be a potent strategy in reframing issues to shore up support for obesity-reduction policies.
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