High School Journalists Write about Nutrition and Physical Activity

Many content analyses ofmass media and health messages havebeen conducted, but little is knownregarding the perceptions of high schoolstudents about health-related topics.The authors conducted a content analysisof 218 newspapers collected from25 Arizona high schools published duringthe 2003-2004 academic year.Two independent evaluators read eachentire newspaper, identified qualifyingarticles (n = 95), and categorized contentby the 2005 Dietary Guidelines forAmericans. Evaluators sorted each article’scontent into one or more groupsreflecting the MyPyramid food categoriesand tracked article themes relatedto harms or benefits of lifestyle choices.Articles were also scored regardinginformation accuracy. Categorizing bythe 2005 Dietary Guidelines, the mostfrequently mentioned article topicswere “carbohydrates” or “reduced sugars”in foods (55%), “weight management”(53%), and “physical activity”(45%). In all, 15% of articles includedsome incorrect information in their text.These data show that healthy eating andactive lifestyles are important concernsfor high school journalism students.Journalism and dietetics professionalsshould volunteer with high school journalismclasses to encourage these interestsand to promote greater coverage of nutrition and health issues as well asmore accurate reporting.

学界已开展诸多大众传媒与健康传播内容分析研究，但针对高中生对健康相关议题的认知状况，目前仍鲜有相关研究成果。本研究作者对2003-2004学年期间，从亚利桑那州25所高中收集的218份报纸开展了内容分析。两名独立评估员通读所有报纸，筛选出符合标准的文章共计95篇，并依据《2005年美国膳食指南（2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans）》对文章内容进行分类。评估员将每篇文章的内容归入对应我的膳食金字塔（MyPyramid）食物类别的一个或多个组别，并梳理与生活方式选择的利弊相关的文章主题。研究人员同时依据信息准确性对文章进行评分。依据《2005年美国膳食指南》分类后，出现频次最高的文章主题为食品中的碳水化合物或减糖成分（55%）、体重管理（53%）以及身体活动（45%）。总体而言，15%的文章存在信息表述错误。本研究数据表明，健康饮食与积极的生活方式是高中新闻专业学生重点关注的议题。新闻与营养学专业人士应主动参与高中新闻课堂志愿教学，以激发学生的相关兴趣，并推动媒体加大对营养与健康议题的报道力度，同时提升报道的准确性。