Abstract
Introduction: Newspaper reports advocating dietary intake changes may impact on dietary choice and food related health beliefs. The scientific basis and quality of evidence underpinning these reports is uncertain.
Objective: To evaluate the scientific quality of newspaper reporting related to dietary advice.
Design: Articles offering dietary advice from the top ten selling UK newspapers for a randomly selected week were assessed using two established evidence grading scales: developed by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN).
Results: Of 111 dietary health claims identified, 72% and 68% (assessed by WCRF and SIGN criteria respectively) had levels of evidence lower than the convincing or probable categories that are recommended for dietary health claims.
Conclusions: Misreporting of dietary advice by UK newspapers is widespread and may contribute to public misconceptions about food and health.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 664-673 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF SCIENCE |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| Early online date | 11 Apr 2011 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2012 |
UN SDGs
This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
-
SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'The quality of the evidence for dietary advice given in UK national newspapers'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Cite this
- APA
- Author
- BIBTEX
- Harvard
- Standard
- RIS
- Vancouver