- Email: [email protected]
Weight control as portrayed in popular magazines
LITERATURE CITED
1 National Academy of Sciences. National Research Council. Committee on Food Habits. Manual for the study of food habits. National Academy of Sciences Bulletin No. 111. Washington: National Research Council, 1945, 142 pp. 2 Beaudoin, R., and J. Mayer. Food intakes of obese and non-obese women. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 29:29, 1953. 3 Young, C.M., and M.F. Trulson. Methodology for dietary studies in epidemiological surveys. Pt. 2: Strengths and weaknesses of existing methods. American Journal of Public Health 50:803-14, 1960. 4 U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service. Methodology for large-scale surveys of household and individual diets, by M.C. Burk and E.M.
Pao. Home Economics Research Report No. 40. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976, 88 pp. 5 Bransby, E.R., C.G. Daubney, and J. King. Comparison of results obtained by different methods of individual dietary survey. British Journal of Nutrition 2:89-110, 1948. 6 Meredith, A., A. Matthews, M. Zickefoose, E. Weagley, M. Wayave, and E.G. Brown. How well do school children recall what they have eaten? Journal of the American Dietetic Association 27:749-51, 1951. 7 Young, C.M., F.W. Chalmers, H.N. Church, M.M. Clayton, R.E. Tucker, A.W. Wertz, and W.D. Foster. A comparison of dietary study methods. Pt. 1: Dietary history vs. seven-day record. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 28:124-28, 1952
8 Emmons, L., and M. Hayes. Accuracy of 24-hour recalls of young children. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 62:409-15, 1973. 9 Lund, L.A., and M.C. Burk. A multidisciplinary analysis of children's food consumption behavior. Technical Bulletin 265. St. Paul: Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, 1969. 10 Bronfenbrenner, U. The origins of alienation. Scientific American, August 1974, pp. 53-61. 11 Truswell, S.A., and I. Darnton-Hill. Food habits of adolescents. Nutrition Reviews 39:73-88, 1981. 12 Rasanen, L. Nutrition Survey of Finnish rural children. Pt. 6: Methodological study comparing the 24-hour recall and the dietary history interview. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 32:2560-69, 1979.
Weight Control as Portrayed In Popular Magazines Ellen S. Parham, Victoria L. Frigo, and Alice H. Perkins Department of Home Economics, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115 In order to investigate the attitudes toward weight control expressed in popular magazines, we assigned 66 articles from 34 issues of 22 contemporary magazines to 3 nutritionists and 16 laypersons for evaluation with a specially developed instrument. Our judges viewed the articles as fairly accurate, optimistic, supportive, and sympathetic. They scored the task of maintaining ideal weight as represented as moderately difficult and requiring a largely chronic effort. The judges reported that the articles conveyed diet, will power, and behavioral modification as most important in weight control, closely followed by self-understanding. Only minor differences emerged between the ratings of professional and lay judges. Home service and fashion magazines tended to convey slightly different emphases on some concepts, but in most cases no significant differences emerged. However, wide variability even within types of magazines emphasize the need to evaluate individually the weight control articles in popular magazines. (JNE 14:153-56, 1982) ABSTRACT
Although Americans spend more time watching television than reading magazines, they report that they use television primarily for entertainment, but expect information from magazines (1). Dieters in particular often cite popular magazine articles as their sources of information on diet and weight control (2, 3). However, nutrition professionals question the accuracy of the nut~ition messages conveyed in contemporary magazines (4, 5). To the consumer interested in weight reduction, the accuracy of the nutrition information in a magazine may be of minor concern. Allon (6) described four broad perspectives by which in everyday life American society stigmatizes overweight people. Thus, the overall impression created by a popular article may relate as VOLUME
14 NUMBER 4
1982
much to the way in which social and psychological issues are handled as with the accuracy of the nutrition science information. We sought to examine from many perspectives the quality of information provided by popular magazines on the topics of body size and weight control. Because nutrition professionals, when evaluating content, may be disproportionately sensitive to factual accuracy at the expense of noting the social and psychological messages, we incorporated lay judges into our evaluation strategy. In this paper we present our findings on the overall profile of weight control information portrayed in popular magazines and compare the assessment by professional judges with that of lay judges.
PROCEDURES
In order to sample from a broad basis, from issues on the newsstand in January 1980 we selected 22 different magazines that had high circulations (1) or that regularly or primarily devoted space to weight control. The sampling yielded 9 home service magazines, 4 fashion magazines, and a variety of other general interest, health, or "women's" magazines. So as to weight the sample towards material most widely read, for 10 magazines with a circulation exceeding 5 million, we included a second issue from June 1979; for one magazine with a circulation exceeding 18 million, we included a third issue. One investigator paged through 32 of the 34 magazine issues in the sample and identified, logged, and photocopied each article, letter, or cartoon related to body size or weight control. In the cases of 2 magazines devoted entirely to weight control, we randomly selected 4 articles from each for inclusion in the final content sample of 66 items. During identification of the content sample, we also recorded the appearance of nutrition items on topics other than weight control and the distribution of types of weight-control and bodyimage items. We found that 83% of the total nutrition content of the magazine issues in the sample related to weight control or body image. Table 1 displays the JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
153
Table 1 Distribution of various types of weight control content in contemporary magazines Type (n = 66) Diet programs Diet tips Personal experiences Recipes only Exercise Letters Newsbriefs Other
Percentage of All Relevant ArticleS"
21 OJ. 19 16 10 6 6 3 18
'Due to rounding off, total percentage is less than 100070.
distribution of types of content represented in the 66 sample items on weight control or body image. Having collected from the popular and professional literature 21 concepts related to weight control, we developed an instrument for evaluation of the sample items. The evaluation dealt not only with the scientific accuracy of the information but also with several social, psychological, and philosophical attitudes about weight control and body image. The instrument consisted of a series of 21 pairs of terms; the two terms in each pair represented the extremes of an attitude or impression that the article could be judged to convey. Some examples are: weight control is very difficult or very easy, the tone is very supportive or not at all supportive, will power is very important or very unimportant, and being normal weight is very important or very unimportant to happiness. We constructed the instrument with a 9-centimeter line connecting the two polar terms in each pair. The instructions requested that judges place an x on the line at the point that expressed their perception of that factor as expressed in each article. We converted the evaluations to numerical values by measuring, to the nearest millimeter, the distance between the anchorage point on the left and the judges' x mark. Two groups of jU9-ges participated in the evaluation. The professional judging team consisted of the 3 authors, all of whom are registered dietitians experienced in working with weight control. We also recruited a panel of 16 lay judges representative of a segment of the population reported to be extensive buyers of magazines (1). The lay judges were females residing in a middleclass suburb in the midwestern United 154
JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
Table 2
Trends toward different philosophies of weight control expressed by types of magazines
Ratings of Types ofMagazines' Group of Judges All judges combined
Professional judges only
Home Service
Fashion
All Other
2.9· bZ
2.5 b
3.6'
Importance of diet to weight control
l.5 b
Difficulty of weight control
4.1'
J.9· b 4.3'
2.7' 3.2b
Concepts Optimism toward permanency of weight loss
Optimism toward permanency of weight loss
2.9·b 5.8·b
2.7 b
Moralistic tone
5.9'
3.6' 5.0b
Importance of ideal weight to attractiveness
2.5 b
2.8 b
4.4'
Importance of ideal weight to happiness
2.4b
3.2'
3.5'
1Lower scores express more agreement with the concept as stated. zWhen normalized and submitted to analysis of variance with follow-up by Duncan's Multiple Range Test, values in a horizontal row that do not share a common superscript letter tend to be different (p $ 0.10).
States. They ranged in age from early twenties to mid-forties. All had completed high school, and most had completed four years of college. None were professionally trained in a nutrition-related field. Aside from the instructions on the evaluation instrument, neither group of judges received special training for making the evaluations. Each article relating to weight control was photocopied and supplied to the judges in random order. The judges read and evaluated the articles at their convenience and recorded their responses to each article on a separate form. Each article was read and evaluated by all 3 professional judges and by 5 lay judges. Thus, each professional judge evaluated 66 items, and each lay judge evaluated 20 or 21 items. Each judge was instructed to rate each article on each concept, even if the article conveyed only a general impression; only when an article was totally unrelated to a concept was the judge to mark not applicable. RESULTS We analyzed the data in several ways. In order to create an overall profile of the attitudes about weight loss and body image conveyed in popular magazines, we averaged the raw scores of all 8 judges (3 professional and 5 lay judges) on the 66 sample items for each of the 21 concepts that appeared on the evaluation instrument. These mean scores with standard deviations appear in Figure 1 on a facsimile of
the evaluation instrument. In some cases the ratings reflected only a few of the 66 content items. For example, most judges reported that the concepts of religion, psychological help, and employment did not apply to most of the content articles. Mean scores of 3.0 or lower and 6.0 or higher represented judges' opinions that the overall content sample stressed particular philosophies. Thus, overall, we found that popular magazines conveyed the messages that weight control is a person's own responsibility that requires a chronic effort and has a high likelihood of a permanent solution. Our judges viewed the articles as containing mainly reliable information in a sympathetic and supportive manner. However, considering scores of individual articles, the judges considered about 100/0 of them as unreliable because of inaccurate information. The mean scores revealed that the articles stressed will power, diet, exercise, behavior modification, and self-understanding as important to successful weight loss and did not stress the importance of drugs. According to our judges' scores, our sample of articles presented being normal or ideal weight as important to attractiveness, health, and happiness. In only 4 cases did the opinions of the professional judges differ significantly from those of the lay judges. The professional judges scored the magazine articles as presenting weight loss as more difficult, as more the responsibility of the individual dieter, and as being more sympathetic and moralistic in tone than did the lay judges. VOLUME
14
NUMBER 4
1982
However, among the remaining 17 characteristics, the raw scores of the professional and lay judges did not differ significantly. We also evaluated normalized scores by converting each judge's score to a relative score based on the range of scores used by the individual judge. This system of data transformation (7, 8) considers the relative ranking of each value for a given item by a given judge. When we compared the normalized scores of professional and lay judges, no significant differences emerged on any of the 21 concepts measured on the evaluation instrument. Since the variability in the overall scores was quite large and was not accounted for by dramatic differences in opinions between professional and lay judges, we also explored the possibility that weight control concepts differed significantly among different types of popular magazines. By analysis of variance we assessed differences among the scores of home service magazines, fashion magazines, and the heterogeneous group of other magazines in the sample. Table 2 displays the trends in these data. When we considered all judges' ratings, we found that fashion magazines presented the more optimistic view toward the likelihood of achieving permanent weight loss and home service magazines placed more emphasis on the importance of diet to weight control than did other magazines. The professional judges reported that home service and fashion magazines tended to convey weight control as less difficult and to be more optimistic and less moralistic than did the heterogeneous group of other magazines. The professional judges also viewed home service and fashion magazines as stressing the importance of normal weight to attractiveness and home service magazines alone as stressing the importance of ideal weight to happiness. DISCUSSION What can one expect of magazine articles related to weight control? Ideally, such content should present accurate information within an appropriate perspective. Content shoulq include not only the currently accepted facts of energy balance and risks and benefits of various treatments, but also truths about the nature of obesity and the prognosis for a permanent solution. Readers should be referred to appropriate resources for further help. Furthermore, magazines might serve a role in maintaining a moderate pressure to achieve normal body weight by pointing VOLUME
14
NUMBER 4
1982
Figure 1
JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
155
out its relationship to health, attractiveness, happiness, and other values. However, as observed by Allon (6) and by Dwyer and Mayer (9), if this pressure becomes too intense, the effect may be one of stigmatizing the obese readers. If this profile is accepted as a reasonable goal, the magazines as a whole measured up very well. However, it should be borne in mind that in most cases the range was the entire length of the scale, and the content of some was quite poor. A major weakness was the rarity of referral of the reader to nutritionists and dietitians. Also, few magazines included nutrition content beyond articles related to weight control. An encouraging observation was that, overall, the articles emphasized that successful weight control required a chronic or long-term effort. James (10) has commented upon the devastating effect of media articles that lead the reader to expect quick solutions through sustained weight losses of 10 pounds per week. Generally, this study gave more magazines a better evaluation on accuracy than did Hudnall's study (4), but the two studies are not strictly comparable. Hudnall's survey considered 19 magazines published during the last 10 years, whereas this study looked only at the more recent years. Also, there were differences in the magazines selected for study: three of Hudnall's most unreliable magazines were not included in our study, and Hudnall's sample omitted, whereas we included, several popular magazines with a health or weight-control focus. Despite the differences in sampling, both studies indicate that one cannot assume accuracy in magazines but must evaluate each article. In order to assess the effectiveness of magazines in reinforcing motivations for weight control, it is necessary to identify the usual motivation. Dwyer et al. (11) summarized the general finding of those working with weight control-that dieting adult women are motivated by appearance and health concerns, probably in that order. Among adolescent girls the primary reason for dieting is to become more attractive. On the. otber hand, adult men are largely moved to diet because of health threats; and adolescent boys seek to improve their physical fitness and sports ability. Parsonage (12) reported that dieters do not consider health risks imposed by obesity to be important. The magazines in our
156 JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
study communicated that ideal weight was important to health, attractiveness, and happiness, in that order. The Health Belief Model (13) is based on the theory that if a threat to health is to have motivating power, it must be perceived as a real and likely threat, the consequences must be serious, and the proposed solution must have a high level of success. In general, the magazines studied stated that ideal weight was important to health, but they did not elaborate on the probability of serious consequences of being overweight. By the high level of optimism displayed, the magazines did present a high likelihood of success in weight control. However, because of the failure to fulfill the first two conditions, it is doubtful that the magazines really were convincing regarding health as a motivation for weight control. The message that one can be more attractive by avoiding overweight was delivered much more effectively. In our sample, the fashion magazines expressed slightly different attitudes about weight control, possibly because they are rather exclusively directed toward women with an interest in appearance while the other audiences are more diverse. One favorable feature of fashion magazines was the frequent inclusion of copy about attractive and successful women who reported constantly watching their weight. The findings of this investigation suggest that magazines can be a valuable resource in weight control campaigns. Though it is important for nutrition educators to stay informed as to what students and clients are reading because of the considerable range of quality offered by magazines, for the most part, the content about weight control was factual and reliable, suggesting that it is not always appropriate to dismiss magazines' contributions to weight control as usually being "miracle diets." One possible use of such articles by a nutrition educator would be to encourage dieters in groups to share articles they found interesting and helpful. Possibly using a scale such as the one in this study, the group could discuss and evaluate the articles. For a group of dieters to encounter again and again in magazines the basic message of the need for negative energy balance as a key to weight reduction can serve to reinforce the message of the nutrition educator. D
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank the lay judges for their assistance in evaluating the articles.
NOTE
A preliminary report of this investigation was presented at the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Society for Nutrition Education, Montreal, July 1980.
LITERATURE CITED
1 Click, J. W., and R. N. Baird. Magazine editing and production. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co., 1979, pp. 3-14. 2 General Mills Nutrition and Marketing Research Department. A summary report on
U.S. consumers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices about nutrition. Minneapolis,
Minn.: Nutrition and Marketing Research Department of General Mills, 1977, p. 5. 3 Dwyer, J. T., and E. M. Berman. Battling the bulge: A continuing struggle. Two-year follow-up of a successful loser in a commercial dieting concern. In Recent advances in
obesity: I/, Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress on Obesity, G. A. Bray, ed.
Westport, Conn.: Technomic Publishing Co., 1978, pp. 277-94. 4 Hudnall, M. ACSH Survey: How popular magazines rate on nutrition. ACSH News
and Views 3(1): 1-3, 1982. 5 Herbert, V. Will questionable nutrition overwhelm nutrition science? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 34:2848-53, 1981.
6 Allon, N. The stigma of overweight in everyday life. In Obesity in perspective. G. A. Bray, ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973, pp. 83-102. 7 Barr, A. J., J. H. Goodright, J. P. Sail, W. H. Blair, and D. M. Chilko. SAS user's guide: 1979 edition. Raleigh, N.C.: SAS Institute, 1979, pp. 361-64. 8 B1om, G. Statistical estimates and transformed data variables. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1958, p. 145. 9 Dwyer, J., and J. Mayer. The dismal condition: Problems faced by obese adolescent girls in American society. In Obesity in perspective, G. A. Bray, ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973, pp. 103-10.
10 James, W. P. T. Research on obesity, A report of the DHSSIMRC group. London: Department of Health and Social Security, 1976, pp. 57-63. 11 Dwyer, J. T., J. J. Feldman, and J. Mayer. The social psychology of dieting. In The
psychology of obesity: Dynamics and treatment, N. Kiell, ed. Springfield, III.: Charles
C Thomas, 1973, pp. 297-323. 12 Parsonage, S. Slimming in a group. Nutrition and Food Science 37:6-8, 1974. 13 Rosenstock, I. M. Historical origins of the Health Belief Model. Health Education Monographs 2:328-35, 1974.
VOLUME
14
NUMBER 4
1982
1 National Academy of Sciences. National Research Council. Committee on Food Habits. Manual for the study of food habits. National Academy of Sciences Bulletin No. 111. Washington: National Research Council, 1945, 142 pp. 2 Beaudoin, R., and J. Mayer. Food intakes of obese and non-obese women. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 29:29, 1953. 3 Young, C.M., and M.F. Trulson. Methodology for dietary studies in epidemiological surveys. Pt. 2: Strengths and weaknesses of existing methods. American Journal of Public Health 50:803-14, 1960. 4 U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Service. Methodology for large-scale surveys of household and individual diets, by M.C. Burk and E.M.
Pao. Home Economics Research Report No. 40. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1976, 88 pp. 5 Bransby, E.R., C.G. Daubney, and J. King. Comparison of results obtained by different methods of individual dietary survey. British Journal of Nutrition 2:89-110, 1948. 6 Meredith, A., A. Matthews, M. Zickefoose, E. Weagley, M. Wayave, and E.G. Brown. How well do school children recall what they have eaten? Journal of the American Dietetic Association 27:749-51, 1951. 7 Young, C.M., F.W. Chalmers, H.N. Church, M.M. Clayton, R.E. Tucker, A.W. Wertz, and W.D. Foster. A comparison of dietary study methods. Pt. 1: Dietary history vs. seven-day record. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 28:124-28, 1952
8 Emmons, L., and M. Hayes. Accuracy of 24-hour recalls of young children. Journal of the American Dietetic Association 62:409-15, 1973. 9 Lund, L.A., and M.C. Burk. A multidisciplinary analysis of children's food consumption behavior. Technical Bulletin 265. St. Paul: Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station, 1969. 10 Bronfenbrenner, U. The origins of alienation. Scientific American, August 1974, pp. 53-61. 11 Truswell, S.A., and I. Darnton-Hill. Food habits of adolescents. Nutrition Reviews 39:73-88, 1981. 12 Rasanen, L. Nutrition Survey of Finnish rural children. Pt. 6: Methodological study comparing the 24-hour recall and the dietary history interview. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 32:2560-69, 1979.
Weight Control as Portrayed In Popular Magazines Ellen S. Parham, Victoria L. Frigo, and Alice H. Perkins Department of Home Economics, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115 In order to investigate the attitudes toward weight control expressed in popular magazines, we assigned 66 articles from 34 issues of 22 contemporary magazines to 3 nutritionists and 16 laypersons for evaluation with a specially developed instrument. Our judges viewed the articles as fairly accurate, optimistic, supportive, and sympathetic. They scored the task of maintaining ideal weight as represented as moderately difficult and requiring a largely chronic effort. The judges reported that the articles conveyed diet, will power, and behavioral modification as most important in weight control, closely followed by self-understanding. Only minor differences emerged between the ratings of professional and lay judges. Home service and fashion magazines tended to convey slightly different emphases on some concepts, but in most cases no significant differences emerged. However, wide variability even within types of magazines emphasize the need to evaluate individually the weight control articles in popular magazines. (JNE 14:153-56, 1982) ABSTRACT
Although Americans spend more time watching television than reading magazines, they report that they use television primarily for entertainment, but expect information from magazines (1). Dieters in particular often cite popular magazine articles as their sources of information on diet and weight control (2, 3). However, nutrition professionals question the accuracy of the nut~ition messages conveyed in contemporary magazines (4, 5). To the consumer interested in weight reduction, the accuracy of the nutrition information in a magazine may be of minor concern. Allon (6) described four broad perspectives by which in everyday life American society stigmatizes overweight people. Thus, the overall impression created by a popular article may relate as VOLUME
14 NUMBER 4
1982
much to the way in which social and psychological issues are handled as with the accuracy of the nutrition science information. We sought to examine from many perspectives the quality of information provided by popular magazines on the topics of body size and weight control. Because nutrition professionals, when evaluating content, may be disproportionately sensitive to factual accuracy at the expense of noting the social and psychological messages, we incorporated lay judges into our evaluation strategy. In this paper we present our findings on the overall profile of weight control information portrayed in popular magazines and compare the assessment by professional judges with that of lay judges.
PROCEDURES
In order to sample from a broad basis, from issues on the newsstand in January 1980 we selected 22 different magazines that had high circulations (1) or that regularly or primarily devoted space to weight control. The sampling yielded 9 home service magazines, 4 fashion magazines, and a variety of other general interest, health, or "women's" magazines. So as to weight the sample towards material most widely read, for 10 magazines with a circulation exceeding 5 million, we included a second issue from June 1979; for one magazine with a circulation exceeding 18 million, we included a third issue. One investigator paged through 32 of the 34 magazine issues in the sample and identified, logged, and photocopied each article, letter, or cartoon related to body size or weight control. In the cases of 2 magazines devoted entirely to weight control, we randomly selected 4 articles from each for inclusion in the final content sample of 66 items. During identification of the content sample, we also recorded the appearance of nutrition items on topics other than weight control and the distribution of types of weight-control and bodyimage items. We found that 83% of the total nutrition content of the magazine issues in the sample related to weight control or body image. Table 1 displays the JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
153
Table 1 Distribution of various types of weight control content in contemporary magazines Type (n = 66) Diet programs Diet tips Personal experiences Recipes only Exercise Letters Newsbriefs Other
Percentage of All Relevant ArticleS"
21 OJ. 19 16 10 6 6 3 18
'Due to rounding off, total percentage is less than 100070.
distribution of types of content represented in the 66 sample items on weight control or body image. Having collected from the popular and professional literature 21 concepts related to weight control, we developed an instrument for evaluation of the sample items. The evaluation dealt not only with the scientific accuracy of the information but also with several social, psychological, and philosophical attitudes about weight control and body image. The instrument consisted of a series of 21 pairs of terms; the two terms in each pair represented the extremes of an attitude or impression that the article could be judged to convey. Some examples are: weight control is very difficult or very easy, the tone is very supportive or not at all supportive, will power is very important or very unimportant, and being normal weight is very important or very unimportant to happiness. We constructed the instrument with a 9-centimeter line connecting the two polar terms in each pair. The instructions requested that judges place an x on the line at the point that expressed their perception of that factor as expressed in each article. We converted the evaluations to numerical values by measuring, to the nearest millimeter, the distance between the anchorage point on the left and the judges' x mark. Two groups of jU9-ges participated in the evaluation. The professional judging team consisted of the 3 authors, all of whom are registered dietitians experienced in working with weight control. We also recruited a panel of 16 lay judges representative of a segment of the population reported to be extensive buyers of magazines (1). The lay judges were females residing in a middleclass suburb in the midwestern United 154
JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
Table 2
Trends toward different philosophies of weight control expressed by types of magazines
Ratings of Types ofMagazines' Group of Judges All judges combined
Professional judges only
Home Service
Fashion
All Other
2.9· bZ
2.5 b
3.6'
Importance of diet to weight control
l.5 b
Difficulty of weight control
4.1'
J.9· b 4.3'
2.7' 3.2b
Concepts Optimism toward permanency of weight loss
Optimism toward permanency of weight loss
2.9·b 5.8·b
2.7 b
Moralistic tone
5.9'
3.6' 5.0b
Importance of ideal weight to attractiveness
2.5 b
2.8 b
4.4'
Importance of ideal weight to happiness
2.4b
3.2'
3.5'
1Lower scores express more agreement with the concept as stated. zWhen normalized and submitted to analysis of variance with follow-up by Duncan's Multiple Range Test, values in a horizontal row that do not share a common superscript letter tend to be different (p $ 0.10).
States. They ranged in age from early twenties to mid-forties. All had completed high school, and most had completed four years of college. None were professionally trained in a nutrition-related field. Aside from the instructions on the evaluation instrument, neither group of judges received special training for making the evaluations. Each article relating to weight control was photocopied and supplied to the judges in random order. The judges read and evaluated the articles at their convenience and recorded their responses to each article on a separate form. Each article was read and evaluated by all 3 professional judges and by 5 lay judges. Thus, each professional judge evaluated 66 items, and each lay judge evaluated 20 or 21 items. Each judge was instructed to rate each article on each concept, even if the article conveyed only a general impression; only when an article was totally unrelated to a concept was the judge to mark not applicable. RESULTS We analyzed the data in several ways. In order to create an overall profile of the attitudes about weight loss and body image conveyed in popular magazines, we averaged the raw scores of all 8 judges (3 professional and 5 lay judges) on the 66 sample items for each of the 21 concepts that appeared on the evaluation instrument. These mean scores with standard deviations appear in Figure 1 on a facsimile of
the evaluation instrument. In some cases the ratings reflected only a few of the 66 content items. For example, most judges reported that the concepts of religion, psychological help, and employment did not apply to most of the content articles. Mean scores of 3.0 or lower and 6.0 or higher represented judges' opinions that the overall content sample stressed particular philosophies. Thus, overall, we found that popular magazines conveyed the messages that weight control is a person's own responsibility that requires a chronic effort and has a high likelihood of a permanent solution. Our judges viewed the articles as containing mainly reliable information in a sympathetic and supportive manner. However, considering scores of individual articles, the judges considered about 100/0 of them as unreliable because of inaccurate information. The mean scores revealed that the articles stressed will power, diet, exercise, behavior modification, and self-understanding as important to successful weight loss and did not stress the importance of drugs. According to our judges' scores, our sample of articles presented being normal or ideal weight as important to attractiveness, health, and happiness. In only 4 cases did the opinions of the professional judges differ significantly from those of the lay judges. The professional judges scored the magazine articles as presenting weight loss as more difficult, as more the responsibility of the individual dieter, and as being more sympathetic and moralistic in tone than did the lay judges. VOLUME
14
NUMBER 4
1982
However, among the remaining 17 characteristics, the raw scores of the professional and lay judges did not differ significantly. We also evaluated normalized scores by converting each judge's score to a relative score based on the range of scores used by the individual judge. This system of data transformation (7, 8) considers the relative ranking of each value for a given item by a given judge. When we compared the normalized scores of professional and lay judges, no significant differences emerged on any of the 21 concepts measured on the evaluation instrument. Since the variability in the overall scores was quite large and was not accounted for by dramatic differences in opinions between professional and lay judges, we also explored the possibility that weight control concepts differed significantly among different types of popular magazines. By analysis of variance we assessed differences among the scores of home service magazines, fashion magazines, and the heterogeneous group of other magazines in the sample. Table 2 displays the trends in these data. When we considered all judges' ratings, we found that fashion magazines presented the more optimistic view toward the likelihood of achieving permanent weight loss and home service magazines placed more emphasis on the importance of diet to weight control than did other magazines. The professional judges reported that home service and fashion magazines tended to convey weight control as less difficult and to be more optimistic and less moralistic than did the heterogeneous group of other magazines. The professional judges also viewed home service and fashion magazines as stressing the importance of normal weight to attractiveness and home service magazines alone as stressing the importance of ideal weight to happiness. DISCUSSION What can one expect of magazine articles related to weight control? Ideally, such content should present accurate information within an appropriate perspective. Content shoulq include not only the currently accepted facts of energy balance and risks and benefits of various treatments, but also truths about the nature of obesity and the prognosis for a permanent solution. Readers should be referred to appropriate resources for further help. Furthermore, magazines might serve a role in maintaining a moderate pressure to achieve normal body weight by pointing VOLUME
14
NUMBER 4
1982
Figure 1
JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
155
out its relationship to health, attractiveness, happiness, and other values. However, as observed by Allon (6) and by Dwyer and Mayer (9), if this pressure becomes too intense, the effect may be one of stigmatizing the obese readers. If this profile is accepted as a reasonable goal, the magazines as a whole measured up very well. However, it should be borne in mind that in most cases the range was the entire length of the scale, and the content of some was quite poor. A major weakness was the rarity of referral of the reader to nutritionists and dietitians. Also, few magazines included nutrition content beyond articles related to weight control. An encouraging observation was that, overall, the articles emphasized that successful weight control required a chronic or long-term effort. James (10) has commented upon the devastating effect of media articles that lead the reader to expect quick solutions through sustained weight losses of 10 pounds per week. Generally, this study gave more magazines a better evaluation on accuracy than did Hudnall's study (4), but the two studies are not strictly comparable. Hudnall's survey considered 19 magazines published during the last 10 years, whereas this study looked only at the more recent years. Also, there were differences in the magazines selected for study: three of Hudnall's most unreliable magazines were not included in our study, and Hudnall's sample omitted, whereas we included, several popular magazines with a health or weight-control focus. Despite the differences in sampling, both studies indicate that one cannot assume accuracy in magazines but must evaluate each article. In order to assess the effectiveness of magazines in reinforcing motivations for weight control, it is necessary to identify the usual motivation. Dwyer et al. (11) summarized the general finding of those working with weight control-that dieting adult women are motivated by appearance and health concerns, probably in that order. Among adolescent girls the primary reason for dieting is to become more attractive. On the. otber hand, adult men are largely moved to diet because of health threats; and adolescent boys seek to improve their physical fitness and sports ability. Parsonage (12) reported that dieters do not consider health risks imposed by obesity to be important. The magazines in our
156 JOURNAL OF NUTRITION EDUCATION
study communicated that ideal weight was important to health, attractiveness, and happiness, in that order. The Health Belief Model (13) is based on the theory that if a threat to health is to have motivating power, it must be perceived as a real and likely threat, the consequences must be serious, and the proposed solution must have a high level of success. In general, the magazines studied stated that ideal weight was important to health, but they did not elaborate on the probability of serious consequences of being overweight. By the high level of optimism displayed, the magazines did present a high likelihood of success in weight control. However, because of the failure to fulfill the first two conditions, it is doubtful that the magazines really were convincing regarding health as a motivation for weight control. The message that one can be more attractive by avoiding overweight was delivered much more effectively. In our sample, the fashion magazines expressed slightly different attitudes about weight control, possibly because they are rather exclusively directed toward women with an interest in appearance while the other audiences are more diverse. One favorable feature of fashion magazines was the frequent inclusion of copy about attractive and successful women who reported constantly watching their weight. The findings of this investigation suggest that magazines can be a valuable resource in weight control campaigns. Though it is important for nutrition educators to stay informed as to what students and clients are reading because of the considerable range of quality offered by magazines, for the most part, the content about weight control was factual and reliable, suggesting that it is not always appropriate to dismiss magazines' contributions to weight control as usually being "miracle diets." One possible use of such articles by a nutrition educator would be to encourage dieters in groups to share articles they found interesting and helpful. Possibly using a scale such as the one in this study, the group could discuss and evaluate the articles. For a group of dieters to encounter again and again in magazines the basic message of the need for negative energy balance as a key to weight reduction can serve to reinforce the message of the nutrition educator. D
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank the lay judges for their assistance in evaluating the articles.
NOTE
A preliminary report of this investigation was presented at the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Society for Nutrition Education, Montreal, July 1980.
LITERATURE CITED
1 Click, J. W., and R. N. Baird. Magazine editing and production. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co., 1979, pp. 3-14. 2 General Mills Nutrition and Marketing Research Department. A summary report on
U.S. consumers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices about nutrition. Minneapolis,
Minn.: Nutrition and Marketing Research Department of General Mills, 1977, p. 5. 3 Dwyer, J. T., and E. M. Berman. Battling the bulge: A continuing struggle. Two-year follow-up of a successful loser in a commercial dieting concern. In Recent advances in
obesity: I/, Proceedings of the 2nd International Congress on Obesity, G. A. Bray, ed.
Westport, Conn.: Technomic Publishing Co., 1978, pp. 277-94. 4 Hudnall, M. ACSH Survey: How popular magazines rate on nutrition. ACSH News
and Views 3(1): 1-3, 1982. 5 Herbert, V. Will questionable nutrition overwhelm nutrition science? American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 34:2848-53, 1981.
6 Allon, N. The stigma of overweight in everyday life. In Obesity in perspective. G. A. Bray, ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973, pp. 83-102. 7 Barr, A. J., J. H. Goodright, J. P. Sail, W. H. Blair, and D. M. Chilko. SAS user's guide: 1979 edition. Raleigh, N.C.: SAS Institute, 1979, pp. 361-64. 8 B1om, G. Statistical estimates and transformed data variables. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1958, p. 145. 9 Dwyer, J., and J. Mayer. The dismal condition: Problems faced by obese adolescent girls in American society. In Obesity in perspective, G. A. Bray, ed. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973, pp. 103-10.
10 James, W. P. T. Research on obesity, A report of the DHSSIMRC group. London: Department of Health and Social Security, 1976, pp. 57-63. 11 Dwyer, J. T., J. J. Feldman, and J. Mayer. The social psychology of dieting. In The
psychology of obesity: Dynamics and treatment, N. Kiell, ed. Springfield, III.: Charles
C Thomas, 1973, pp. 297-323. 12 Parsonage, S. Slimming in a group. Nutrition and Food Science 37:6-8, 1974. 13 Rosenstock, I. M. Historical origins of the Health Belief Model. Health Education Monographs 2:328-35, 1974.
VOLUME
14
NUMBER 4
1982