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Fifty years of fat: news coverage of trends that predate obesity prevalence

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, July 2015
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (96th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
blogs
1 blog
twitter
46 X users
facebook
8 Facebook pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
10 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
11 Mendeley
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Title
Fifty years of fat: news coverage of trends that predate obesity prevalence
Published in
BMC Public Health, July 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12889-015-1981-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Brennan Davis, Brian Wansink

Abstract

Obesity prevalence has risen in fifty years. While people generally expect media mentions of health risks like obesity prevalence to follow health risk trends, food consumption trends may precede obesity prevalence trends. Therefore, this research investigates whether media mentions of food predate obesity prevalence. Fifty years of non-advertising articles in the New York Times (and 17 years for the London Times) are coded for the mention of less healthy (5 salty and 5 sweet snacks) and healthy (5 fruits and 5 vegetables) food items by year and then associated with annual obesity prevalence in subsequent years. Time-series generalized linear models test whether food-related mentions predate or postdate obesity prevalence in each country. United States obesity prevalence is positively associated with New York Times mentions of sweet snacks (b = 55.2, CI = 42.4 to 68.1, p = .000) and negatively associated with mentions of fruits (b = -71.28, CI -91.5 to -51.1, p = .000) and vegetables (b = -13.6, CI = -17.5 to -9.6, p = .000). Similar results are found for the United Kingdom and The London Times. Importantly, the "obesity followed mentions" models are stronger than the "obesity preceded mentions" models. It may be possible to estimate a nation's future obesity prevalence (e.g., three years from now) based on how frequently national media mention sweet snacks (positively related) and vegetables or fruits (negatively related) today. This may provide public health officials and epidemiologists with new tools to more quickly assess the effectiveness of current obesity interventions based on what is mentioned in the media today.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 46 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 11 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 11 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 3 27%
Other 2 18%
Student > Doctoral Student 1 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 1 9%
Professor 1 9%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 3 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Business, Management and Accounting 2 18%
Nursing and Health Professions 2 18%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 1 9%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 1 9%
Psychology 1 9%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 4 36%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 59. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 05 November 2015.
All research outputs
#710,238
of 25,307,332 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#718
of 16,967 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,088
of 269,392 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#11
of 265 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,307,332 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 16,967 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 269,392 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 265 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.