The rising global prevalence of obesity and eating disorders can be considered one of the top public health challenges of the 21st century. With the large volume of recent scientific research on these conditions, and the increasing number of public health policies directed at their prevention, significant new information concerning obesity and eating disorders is emerging with great frequency. Only a small selection of this new information, however, crosses from the science and policy realms into the public sphere. Here, the news media play a crucial role. Lay concepts regarding the prevention, causation, and management of obesity and eating disorders are now largely informed by news media sources, where health information is communicated to the public with ever-growing immediacy, accessibility, and ubiquity.

​

Considering the news media’s potential influence on people’s health behaviours and lifestyle choices, the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity is exploring the rationale and modes of representation guiding the media’s reporting on obesity and eating disorders.

​

​

Obesity, eating disorders, and the media: an interdisciplinary workshop

​

Wednesday 9 November 2011
St Anne’s College, University of Oxford

​

This workshop aimed to establish the state of the science and define best practices in utilizing digital methods to research the news media. Bringing together leading national and international experts on obesity, eating disorders, and media studies, this workshop was the first to offer a comprehensive examination of the media’s representations of obesity and eating disorders, as well as the first to explore the application of new digital humanities research methods to this field. It engendered innovative and collaborative research, and produced substantial new analyses of the media’s role in bridging science and the public.

Conveners
Professor Stanley Ulijaszek, Dr Karin Eli, Professor David Zeitlyn
School of Anthropology, University of Oxford

Programme
A complete programme and abstract book for the event can be downloaded here. Click on the presentation titles for slides.