Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

LIVE: Thursday 27th June 2024, 18:00-19:30 (CEST)
Join our expert panel to discover why you need to understand the drivers of non-adherence in your patients, and how you can optimize medication adherence in your clinics to drastically improve patient outcomes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
BMC Public Health
Published in: BMC Public Health 1/2024

Open Access 01-12-2024 | Nutrition | Research

Women are lean and men are also lean: nutrition titles in women’s and men’s health magazines

Authors: Hélène Burdet, Aris Xanthos, Pedro Marques-Vidal

Published in: BMC Public Health | Issue 1/2024

Login to get access

Abstract

Background

Whether nutrition messages in popular health magazines differ by country or season has seldom been studied. We assessed the nutrition topics featured in the headlines of Men’s Health® (MH) and Women’s Health® (WH) magazines from different countries.

Methods

We sampled MH and WH magazines from Portugal, South Africa, Spain, the UK and the USA. Nutrition-related headlines were categorized as weight loss, weight gain, micronutrients and other.

Results

The most frequent topics were “Other” (44%) and “weight loss” (41%), while “micronutrients” represented 4%. Topics related to weight gain were more frequent in MH (19% vs. 2% in WH), while no difference was found for weight loss (44% vs. 37% in WH). On multivariable analysis, weight gain had a higher likelihood of being present in MH than in WH, Odds ratio and (95% confidence interval): 8.3 (2.2–90.9), p = 0.002, while no association was found for weight loss: OR 1.1 (0.6-2.0), p = 0.80. Weight loss was absent from the US WH and present in two thirds of the Portuguese WH; in MH, weight gain was evenly distributed between countries. Prevalence of the weight loss topic was lower in March (15% vs. 54% in January, p < 0.01 by logistic regression) and to a lesser degree in June (35%) and July (35%). No seasonality was found for the “weight gain” topic.

Conclusion

In WH and MH magazines, nutrition topics vary according to gender, country, and season. Weight gain remains a male topic, while weight loss is equally prevalent in both women’s and men’s magazines.
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Literature
1.
Collaborators GBDD. Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the global burden of Disease Study 2017. Lancet. 2019;393(10184):1958–72.CrossRef
2.
3.
4.
Aparicio-Martinez P, Perea-Moreno AJ, Martinez-Jimenez MP, Redel-Macias MD, Pagliari C, Vaquero-Abellan M. Social Media, Thin-Ideal, Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating attitudes: an exploratory analysis. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2019, 16(21).
5.
Camerino L, Camerino O, Prat Q, Jonsson GK, Castaner M. Has the use of body image in advertising changed in the first two decades of the new century? Physiol Behav. 2020;220:112869.CrossRefPubMed
6.
Nagler RH. Adverse outcomes associated with media exposure to contradictory nutrition messages. J Health Commun. 2014;19(1):24–40.CrossRefPubMed
7.
8.
Spencer RJ, Russell JM, Barker ME. Temporality in British young women’s magazines: food, cooking and weight loss. Public Health Nutr. 2014;17(10):2359–67.CrossRefPubMed
9.
Griffiths S, Austen E, Krug I, Blake K. Beach body ready? Shredding for summer? A first look at seasonal body image. Body Image. 2021;37:269–81.CrossRefPubMed
10.
11.
12.
Cook TM, Russell JM, Barker ME. Dietary advice for muscularity, leanness and weight control in Men’s Health magazine: a content analysis. BMC Public Health. 2014;14:1062.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
13.
Herforth A, Arimond M, Alvarez-Sanchez C, Coates J, Christianson K, Muehlhoff E. A Global Review of Food-based Dietary guidelines. Adv Nutr. 2019;10(4):590–605.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
14.
Paxton SJ, Eisenberg ME, Neumark-Sztainer D. Prospective predictors of body dissatisfaction in adolescent girls and boys: a five-year longitudinal study. Dev Psychol. 2006;42(5):888–99.CrossRefPubMed
15.
Strodl E, Markey C, Aime A, Rodgers RF, Dion J, Coco GL, Gullo S, McCabe M, Mellor D, Granero-Gallegos A, et al. A cross-country examination of emotional eating, restrained eating and intuitive eating: Measurement Invariance across eight countries. Body Image. 2020;35:245–54.CrossRefPubMed
16.
Martinighi M, Koga da Silva EM. Quality of diet plans for weight loss featured in women’s magazines. A cross-sectional descriptive study. Sao Paulo Med J. 2017;135(4):339–46.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
17.
Turicchi J, O’Driscoll R, Horgan G, Duarte C, Palmeira AL, Larsen SC, Heitmann BL, Stubbs J. Weekly, seasonal and holiday body weight fluctuation patterns among individuals engaged in a European multi-centre behavioural weight loss maintenance intervention. PLoS ONE. 2020;15(4):e0232152.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral
18.
Cleland R, Gross W, Koss L, Daynard M, Muoio K. Weight-loss advertising: an analysis of current trends. In. Edited by Federal Trade Commission. Washington, DC, USA; 2002: 60.
19.
Bailey P, Purcell S, Calvar J, Baverstock A. Actions & interventions for weight loss. In.: IPSOS; 2021: 30.
20.
Martin C, Herrick K, Sarafrazi N, Ogden C. Attempts to lose weight among adults in the United States, 2013–2016. NCHS Data brief. Hyattsville, MD, USA: National Center for Health Statistics; 2018. p. 8.
21.
22.
23.
Webb JB, Vinoski ER, Bonar AS, Davies AE, Etzel L. Fat is fashionable and fit: a comparative content analysis of Fatspiration and Health at every size((R)) Instagram images. Body Image. 2017;22:53–64.CrossRefPubMed
24.
Ravary A, Baldwin MW, Bartz JA. Shaping the body politic: Mass Media Fat-Shaming affects Implicit Anti-fat attitudes. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2019;45(11):1580–9.CrossRefPubMed
25.
Murray SB, Brown TA, Lavender JM, Nagata JM, Keel PK. The evolving nature of weight dissatisfaction and eating behaviors among men: secular trends among college men across four decades. J Abnorm Psychol. 2020;129(8):824–30.CrossRefPubMed
26.
Frederick DA, Fessler DM, Haselton MG. Do representations of male muscularity differ in men’s and women’s magazines? Body Image. 2005;2(1):81–6.CrossRefPubMed
27.
Cramblitt B, Pritchard M. Media’s influence on the drive for muscularity in undergraduates. Eat Behav. 2013;14(4):441–6.CrossRefPubMed
28.
Blond A. Impacts of exposure to images of ideal bodies on male body dissatisfaction: a review. Body Image. 2008;5(3):244–50.CrossRefPubMed
29.
30.
31.
Griffiths S, Cowley-Court T, Austen E, Russo-Batterham D, Blake K. Spring is the best time to lose weight: evidence that dieting is seasonal and reaches peak intensity during spring. Body Image. 2022;41:406–16.CrossRefPubMed
32.
Daniel S, Bridges SK. The drive for muscularity in men: media influences and objectification theory. Body Image. 2010;7(1):32–8.CrossRefPubMed
33.
De Jesus AY, Ricciardelli LA, Frisen A, Smolak L, Yager Z, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz M, Diedrichs PC, Franko D, Gattario KH. Media internalization and conformity to traditional masculine norms in relation to body image concerns among men. Eat Behav. 2015;18:137–42.CrossRefPubMed
34.
Bennett BL, Wagner AF, Obleada KT, Latner JD. Appearance-focused media use as a moderator of the relationship between fear of fat and weight bias: an exploratory study. Eat Weight Disord. 2020;25(3):643–8.CrossRefPubMed
35.
36.
Barker ME, Burridge JD. Nutrition claims in British women’s magazines from 1940 to 1955. J Hum Nutr Diet. 2014;27(Suppl 2):117–23.CrossRefPubMed
Metadata
Title
Women are lean and men are also lean: nutrition titles in women’s and men’s health magazines
Authors
Hélène Burdet
Aris Xanthos
Pedro Marques-Vidal
Publication date
01-12-2024
Publisher
BioMed Central
Keyword
Nutrition
Published in
BMC Public Health / Issue 1/2024
Electronic ISSN: 1471-2458
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-18706-4

Other articles of this Issue 1/2024

BMC Public Health 1/2024 Go to the issue

Research

Long-term exposure to ambient PM2.5 and its components on menarche timing among Chinese adolescents: evidence from a representative nationwide cohort

Research

Ethno-racial variations in mental health symptoms among sexually-active gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Vancouver, Canada: a longitudinal analysis

Research

Predictors of quitting support from nonsmoking mothers for smoking fathers: a cross-sectional study from Chinese pupils’ families

Research

A qualitative study of the barriers to commissioning social and therapeutic horticulture in mental health care

Research

Changes in, and factors associated with family functioning: results of four cross-sectional household surveys from 2011 to 2017 in Hong Kong

Research

EQ-5D-3L and EQ-5D-5L population norms for Thailand