A textual analysis of health-content framing in women's health and fitness magazines

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Women's Health, SELF and Shape are the top-three circulating women's health and fitness magazines. Thousands of women turn to these publications for fitness, nutrition and overall health content. Using framing and objectification theories, this research qualitatively analyzes more than 200 cover lines from 2014-2016 from these three magazines to understand how the magazines frame health content on the cover of the magazine versus how it is framed in the stories that correlate to those cover lines. The core findings of this research include how cover lines are almost always framed for appearance and make health and fitness seem easy with quick fixes. The stories present more complex frames including achieving the perfect body as the ultimate goal, using weight loss as a means to gain control, nutrition as a problem solver and improving overall health for a better life. These magazines have changed to include less appearance-based health content on the covers since January 2014.