Tanner Andrea, Blake Christine E, Thrasher James F
School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA.
Ecol Food Nutr. 2012;51(1):1-21. doi: 10.1080/03670244.2012.635567.
News media are a primary source of nutrition information for the general public. Beverages are a key product category implicated in the obesity epidemic, but it is unclear how recommendations for healthy beverage consumption patterns are communicated by the news media. This study evaluated the health content of beverage-related news reports on national television newscasts from 2000 to 2008. News reports were coded to assess topic, source attribution, and confusion. Analysis revealed that beverage nutrition messages focused primarily on educating consumers or reports of prevalence. Conflicting or confusing nutrition recommendations were discussed in nearly one in three reports (29%). News reports most often discussed beverage consumption in terms of individual health decision-making, indicating a significant lack of emphasis on public health policy. The findings provide important insights into health-related beverage messages being disseminated by television news outlets and suggest avenues for nutrition researchers and practitioners to engage the media regarding nutrition policy issues.
新闻媒体是普通大众获取营养信息的主要来源。饮料是肥胖流行所涉及的一个关键产品类别，但尚不清楚新闻媒体是如何传播关于健康饮料消费模式的建议的。本研究评估了2000年至2008年国家电视台新闻节目中与饮料相关的新闻报道的健康内容。对新闻报道进行编码以评估主题、来源归因和混淆情况。分析表明，饮料营养信息主要集中在教育消费者或患病率报告上。近三分之一的报道（29%）讨论了相互矛盾或令人困惑的营养建议。新闻报道最常从个人健康决策的角度讨论饮料消费，这表明对公共卫生政策的重视明显不足。这些发现为电视新闻媒体传播的与健康相关的饮料信息提供了重要见解，并为营养研究人员和从业者就营养政策问题与媒体互动提供了途径。
