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

Besides “other” nutritional topics, “weight loss” ranked high in the topics list and was almost as prevalent in WH and in MH magazines, with the notable exception of WH from the USA. Obesity affects four out of ten Americans [21], and 55% of them want to lose weight [22]; still, no headline related to weight loss was found in WH of the USA. The reason might be editorial, due either to the impact of the fat acceptance movement [23], or to the fear of promoting fat shaming [24]. Yet, the women depicted in the covers of WH USA had a lean body, suggesting that WH USA might not be this body inclusive. Interestingly, the high prevalence of “weight loss”-related headlines in MH magazines was unexpected, and outnumbered the “weight gain” topic, which is traditionally a male’s concern. The prevalence of the “weight loss” headlines was almost similar between WH and MH magazines from Portugal and the UK, while in the USA the “weight loss” topic was only shown in MH. Again, the reason might be editorial, aimed at increasing readership by people with overweight or obesity. Another possibility would be an increase in body dissatisfaction and for thinness among men, although this statement has been challenged [25]. Overall, our results indicate that weight loss is no longer only a woman-related topic, being now more frequent among men’s magazines.

Weight gain was almost exclusively a MH topic. Weight gain in MH was mostly related to increased muscle, a finding also reported previously [12]. Indeed, most MH covers featured muscular, popular sports or movie stars, a strategy also reported elsewhere [5, 26]. Hence, magazines might use both the “weight loss” and the “weight gain” topics to motivate/convince readers that they can change their bodily features from fat to muscular [27]. Conversely, such strategies might also lead to increased body dissatisfaction [28], increased demand for quick results, leading to weight loss strategies that are more deleterious than beneficial [7].

Overall, our results indicate that the topics covered in the headlines of WH and MH differ according to target readership and country. The differences observed by country could be due to the willingness of the editorial boards to target specific parts of the general population to ensure a good acceptance of the magazine. Studies on the characteristics of the readers within each country are needed to better assess this point.

In both WH and MH, “weight loss” headlines were more frequent in January, coinciding with New Year’s resolutions. Indeed, losing weight is one of the most frequent New Year’s resolutions [29, 30], and our findings agree with a previous study reporting that many weight loss messages are published at the beginning of the year [8]. In WH, there were almost no headlines related to weight loss in February and March, the topic gaining again prominence before summer. The probable explanation is to become “beach ready” and avoid the apprehension of summer body dissatisfaction [31]. The number of headlines related to weight loss then decreased during summer, to rise again at the end of the year. This rebound also appeared in MH and might be aimed at counterbalancing the weight gain of the Christmas season [17]. Unlike in WH, in MH there was no increase in the number of headlines related to weight loss before summer. This might be because the pressure to be thin is higher for women than it is for men. Regarding the headlines related to weight gain, the greater frequency occurred in August, which does not seem to be aimed at being “beach ready” as it occurs too late. A possible explanation is that it is aimed at pushing the readers to become more muscular, as it was shown that men internalize the media’s drive for muscularity [32, 33].

Health is an important public topic, and health magazines can exert a powerful impact in the general population via the messages they convey. The importance of the weight loss and weight gain topics found in WH and MH magazines carries the image of an idealized, thin, and healthy self. This image might be unattainable by many readers, leading to body dissatisfaction and eventually disordered eating behaviors [4, 34]. Also, the seasonality of the headlines related to weight loss could induce weight cycling, with possible deleterious effects in the cardiovascular system [35]. This seasonality could also impact body image among readers, increasing their body dissatisfaction during Summer [9]. Hence, in presence of disordered eating or body image issues, health professionals should search for the consultation of health magazines and eventually prevent their reading by the patients.

To our knowledge, this is the largest study assessing nutrition topics on health magazines, and the only one that compared the same magazine published in different countries. Indeed, previous studies focused on a magazine from a single country [12]. Other studies provided trends in nutrition but did not assess seasonality [36].

This study has also some limitations worth acknowledging. First, it selected magazines in languages accessible to the authors; hence, magazines from other countries could not be sampled and generalizability of the findings might not be achievable. Secondly, due to the different languages of the magazines, it was not possible to analyse the tones, the words used and their synonyms, or the rhetoric of the headlines. More in-depth textual analysis will be necessary. Thirdly, only the headlines in the cover pages were collected and analysed, not the full length of the articles. However, the titles are most likely a good representation of the content of the articles, as the role of a title is to convey the subject covered. Finally, in many cases the headlines nether nutrition nor exercise were indicated as means to lose or gain weight. Hence, it was not possible to establish if the headline focused on nutrition, on exercise, or both.