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Cited by 318

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 88 of the 88 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Fat in the Fire? Science, the News Media, and the “Obesity Epidemic”2

Saguy, Abigail C., Almeling, Rene·2008·Sociological Forum

Abstract

In recent years, the “obesity epidemic” has emerged as a putative public health crisis. This article examines the interconnected role of medical science and news reporting in shaping the way obesity is framed as a social problem. Drawing on a sample of scientific publications on weight and health, and press releases and news reporting on these publications, we compare and contrast social problem frames in medical science and news reporting. We find substantial overlap in science and news reporting, but the news media do dramatize more than the studies on which they are reporting and are more likely than the original science to highlight individual blame for weight. This is partly due to the news media’s tendency to report more heavily on the most alarmist and individual‐blaming scientific studies. We find some evidence that press releases also shape which articles receive media coverage and how they are framed.

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Metadata

Authors
Saguy, A. C., & Almeling, R.
Venue
Sociological Forum
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2007-10-26
Volume
23
Issue
1
Pages
53-83
ISSN
  • 0884-8971 (ISSN-L)
  • 1573-7861
OpenAlex
W1592401919
Cited by
318
References
88
FWCI
31.47
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Fat in the Fire? Science, the News Media, and the “Obesity Epidemic”2. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2004.00399.x-i1
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Saguy, A. C., & Almeling, R. (2008). Fat in the Fire? Science, the News Media, and the “Obesity Epidemic”2. Sociological Forum. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0838.2004.00399.x-i1

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.