Childhood Obesity in the Spanish Digital Press: A Social Problem with Individual Causes and Consequences

Abstract

The media plays an important role in prevention, awareness-raising and education of society regarding childhood obesity, a public health problem that is showing signs of a pandemic. This is happening in Spain, currently the fourth European country in terms of boys and girls who are overweight or obese. This investigation analyzes how the main Spanish digital newspapers talk about childhood obesity to the population. This research uses framing theory to study all content featuring childhood obesity as its main topic during 2020 and 2021 in six of the country's most relevant digital newspapers. The main conclusions show that, in line with previous studies, the newspapers identify childhood obesity as a social problem that requires solutions from society as a whole, although regarding both the causes and the consequences, there is a predominate individual view focused on habits and attitudes among parents and children.