A beef over obesity bias

The holidays are over and millions have resolved to lose the weight we just gained. Now that we're in the new year, the major media will make you think twice about the whole concept of holiday stuffing. How do we know? Our analysis shows this is the media's pattern.

We've analyzed how the major media treated the issue of obesity for the last 11/2 years. The result? The major media are likelier to turn the holiday season into open season on the food industry than into a time to eat, drink and be merry.

It's the new battle of the bulge. Anticorporate activists have seized upon America's worries about weight to launch a campaign against companies that produce the food we all eat. They blame U.S. businesses for the "obesity epidemic" and say it can best be cured by a diet of new taxes, more regulations and lawyer-enriching lawsuits. One well-known activist even complained healthier versions of traditional snack foods were bad because they were foods we "shouldn't be eating at all."

These "activists" got their agenda out because the major media have covered the issue poorly.

The Media Research Center's Free Market Project analyzed all news stories about obesity published in the New York Times and USA Today or aired on the three broadcast network evening news shows for 11/2 years. The first analysis was from May 1, 2003, through April 30, 2004. The second covered the next six months and, unfortunately, shows the media haven't changed their tune much.

In the first study, about half of the 205 stories debated the causes of obesity. Of these, a large majority (64 percent) blamed our nation's weight problems on food companies rather than personal behavior. While this has improved in our second study, it's still a problem. The concept of personal responsibility still hasn't taken hold in U.S. newsrooms.

For example, on the March 9, 2004, World News Tonight, ABC reporter Lisa Stark linked the food industry's behavior with poor health: "It's estimated 64 percent of Americans weigh too much. That increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease and some form of cancer. Those who help people lose weight say they're not surprised by the new numbers. The food industry spends $34 billion a year to market its products." The notion food industry advertising causes obesity is a key argument of the anticorporate activists.

A couple of weeks earlier, on the Feb. 24 CBS Evening News, Elizabeth Kaledin framed an entire story around a negative report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest charging that children's menus at restaurants such as Outback and Red Lobster were dominated by unhealthy choices. "Move over, McNuggets," Ms. Kaledin crowed.

"There's a new food villain in town. New research finds kids' meals at many popular restaurant chains are loaded with more fat and calories than the average fast-food fare."

Story after story cited "food experts" who criticized the food industry for making, of all things, what we want to eat. The media compounded the problem by treating these talking heads like disinterested bystanders, not activists or "experts" pushing one view.

No doubt, obesity is an important health problem. But of 302 stories only one tried to put the alarming statistics into context. "Until 1998, a 5-foot-5 woman who weighed 164 pounds was considered normal," USA Today's Nancy Hellmich and Rita Rubin explained in a June 16, 2003, article. "Then the official body mass index (weight/height) criteria changed, and all of a sudden she was considered overweight if she weighed 150 pounds. The guidelines labeled another 29 million people as overweight. Now, almost 65 percent of Americans weigh too much."

Unfortunately, Ms. Hellmich was one of several reporters who couldn't decide which statistics to use for childhood obesity. An assortment of health and obesity stories claim everything from 15 percent to more than 30 percent of children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 are overweight. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the actual number is about 16 percent, or about half what is claimed in several stories.

This combination of poor facts, a reliance on an activist-set agenda and a strong antibusiness approach is a recipe for continued bad coverage of obesity. It's time for the media to shape up and try feeding us more balanced coverage.

Herman Cain, former president and chairman of Godfather's Pizza Inc. and former chief executive officer of the National Restaurant Association, is the national chairman of the Media Research Center's Free Market Project. Dan Gainor is director of the Free Market Project ( www.freemarketproject.org).