Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis of Food and Nutrition informations in the women's megazines(year 2002)

Moon, Hyun Kyung; Yong, Mi jin; Jang, Young ju

Abstract

The desire for the healthy life is increasing as a result of rapidly changing social and economic environment in Korea. Because of the need, informations on health, food and nutrition are being introduced through the mass media. The object of this study is to investigate and analyze the quantity and quality of informations about health, food and nutrition in women's magazines. Six representative domestic monthly magazines(Lady Kyunghyang, Women Donga, Women Chosun, Women JoongAng, Women sense, Jubu Senghwal) were selected for this study. The results of monitoring from June 2002 to September 2002 for the women's magazines were summarized as follows; 1. The percentage of the articles on health, food and nutrition by total area of the women's magazines was 23.1%. There were total 595 articles on health, food and nutrition. Among these, 400 articles(67.2%) were about food and nutrition. 2. The percentage of the advertisements on health, food and nutrition was 35.3% by total area of the woman's magazines. There were 2,353 advertisements on health, food and nutrition. Among these, 1,574(66.9%) advertisements were about food and nutrition. The most frequently advertised advertisements on food and nutrition were about processed foods (527 cases, 33.5%). The second most frequently advertised advertisements were about diet (374 cases, 23.8%). The third one was healthy foods (345 cases, 21.9%). 3. The contents of 215(53.8%) articles (the total number of articles was 400) was suitable. The contents of 89 advertisements(22.3%) did not have accurate informations on health, food and nutrition. For the advertisements in women's magazines (the number of total articles was 2,203), the percentage of the advertisements which was not able to capture the feature of the advertisements was 27.9%, insufficiency of reliable sources was to 21.9%, and exaggeration of the contents in the ads was 16.0%. Articles and advertisements should be backed by scientific research or reliable sources and also the opinions of people with expertise in order to report accurate informations to the general public. In order to achieve these results, there should be continuing monitoring activity for the women's magazines.