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

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.