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"We're Part of the Solution": Evolution of the Food and Beverage Industry's Framing of Obesity Concerns Between 2000
Laura Nixon1, Pamela Mejia1, Andrew Cheyne1
1Laura Nixon, Pamela Mejia, Lori Dorfman, and Andrew Cheyne are with Berkeley Media Studies Group, a project of the Public Health Institute, Berkeley, CA. Cara Wilking is with the Public Health Advocacy Institute, Boston, MA. Richard Daynard is with the Northeastern University School of Law, Boston.
Abstract:
We investigated how industry claim-makers countered concerns about obesity and other nutrition-related diseases in newspaper coverage from 2000, the year before the US Surgeon General's Call to Action on obesity, through 2012. We found that the food and beverage industry evolved in its response. The defense arguments were made by trade associations, industry-funded nonprofit groups, and individual companies representing the packaged food industry, restaurants, and the nonalcoholic beverage industry. Individual companies used the news primarily to promote voluntary self-regulation, whereas trade associations and industry-supported nonprofit groups directly attacked potential government regulations. There was, however, a shift away from framing obesity as a personal issue toward an overall message that the food and beverage industry wants to be "part of the solution" to the public health crisis.
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