Mapping the debate on food
Preventing obesity begins long before we raise the fork from our plate or decide to watch TV rather than go for a walk. All our personal decisions are made within a social and physical environment that helps shape those decisions. Policies about food, its price, its accessibility, and how it is marketed influence our choices about what we eat. Other public decisions shape our workplaces, neighborhoods, and homes so that they either foster or hinder the frequency and intensity of our exercise. The public conversation we have about those policies is influenced by two key sources of information: news and advertising. With funding from The California Endowment, Berkeley Media Studies Group examined this information and mapped public and industry conversations on nutrition and activity. Media advocates can use the information from the news analysis and the assessment of industry literature to reshape debate on the issue to focus on the policies they’ve determined have the best chance of reducing and preventing obesity.
Related publications
Obesity crisis or soda scapegoat? The debate over selling soda in schools
BMSG evaluated how recent debates on banning sodas in schools were framed in the news coverage of the contests in the Oakland and Los Angeles Unified School Districts. How did proponents and opponents make their case? What statistics, metaphors, and values did they use? The findings will help advocates understand where they sit on the continuum of debate and help them anticipate their opposition’s arguments.
Navigating the trade press: What are the food and beverage industries discussing?
Public health advocates are often at a disadvantage when facing corporate heavyweights simply because they are not privy to the same information. The annotated bibliography reveals the issues at the top of the agenda for food producers and marketers, alerting advocates to a rich source of information on an industry that, to a large degree, determines what Americans eat. Tobacco control advocates learned the importance of “eavesdropping” on the industry literature first, and created some of the first electronic advocacy tools as mechanisms for sharing information about the industry; now they mine the tobacco industry documents for insights into corporate strategies. Public health advocates working to prevent obesity need the same understanding of the food and advertising literature as their colleagues have built for tobacco, alcohol, and firearms. This report takes the first step by identifying and assessing the few “must read” periodicals from the food, beverage, and advertising industries, including standard advertising industry magazines such as AdWeek and Advertising Age, the Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal, and other more specialized journals from the food industry such as Beverage World.
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