A sweet mixed message risks health confusion
Australian media are sending the public mixed messages about sweet drinks and failing to highlight the serious health risks that can come from drinking too many.
University of Technology, Sydney academic Dr Catriona Bonfiglioli has led a study analysing 88 newspaper articles from major Australian newspapers to discover what kind of news coverage sweet drinks receive.
Dr Bonfiglioli said as the news media are our watchdogs, we expect them to alert to us to health risks of sweet drinks including obesity, tooth decay and diabetes.
"The media are sending powerful mixed messages, as there is almost as much coverage of how good sweet drinks are for health (11 %) as there is for how bad sweet drinks are for health, (14%)," Dr Bonfiglioli said.
"By portraying sweet drinks as 'healthy' or sending mixed messages the media is not helping people make healthy or informed decisions about their consumption of sweet drinks."
Dr Bonfiglioli said we take soft drinks and fruit juice for granted as just an everyday part of life and we are not really aware of how much sugar we are consuming from liquids.
"More news coverage of the health risks of sweet drinks would be one way to inform the public," Dr Bonfiglioli said.
"An even better way would be to have 'traffic light' labelling on the front of sweet drink bottles as this would help the public recognise drinks which are highest in sugar.
"Most of the newspaper articles that linked sweet drinks to health benefits were framing fruit juice as healthy.
"Fruit juice has vitamins which make it healthier than soft drinks but it is often high in sugar. All drinks that are high in sugar can affect your teeth and contribute to you consuming too many calories.
"Sugary drinks are liquid calories that can sneak past your sensation of fullness," she said.
"We also get a message from the media that sweet drinks are a good business opportunity and a way to make money."
Dr Bonfiglioli and her co-authors Libby Hattersley and Lesley King have published the research in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health.