Regulating the Fast-Food Landscape: Canadian News Media Representation of the Healthy Menu Choices Act

Elnaz Moghimi and Mary E Wiktorowicz
Additional contact information
Elnaz Moghimi: School of Kinesiology and Health Science, Faculty of Health, York University, Toronto, ON 223, Canada
Mary E Wiktorowicz: School of Health Policy and Management, Faculty of Health, York University, Toronto, ON 4700, Canada

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 24, 1-22

Abstract: With the rapid rise of fast food consumption in Canada, Ontario was the first province to legislate menu labelling requirements via the enactment of the Healthy Menu Choice Act (HMCA). As the news media plays a significant role in policy debates and the agenda for policymakers and the public, the purpose of this mixed-methods study was to clarify the manner in which the news media portrayed the strengths and critiques of the Act, and its impact on members of the community, including consumers and stakeholders. Drawing on data from Canadian regional and national news outlets, the major findings highlight that, although the media reported that the HMCA was a positive step forward, this was tempered by critiques concerning the ineffectiveness of using caloric labelling as the sole measure of health, and its predicted low impact on changing consumption patterns on its own. Furthermore, the news media were found to focus accountability for healthier eating choices largely on the individual, with very little consideration of the role of the food industry or the social and structural determinants that affect food choice. A strong conflation of health, weight and calories was apparent, with little acknowledgement of the implications of menu choice for chronic illness. The analysis demonstrates that the complex factors associated with food choice were largely unrecognized by the media, including the limited extent to which social, cultural, political and corporate determinants of unhealthy choices were taken into account as the legislation was developed. Greater recognition of these factors by the media concerning the HMCA may evoke more meaningful and long-term change for health and food choices.

Keywords: policy; media; menu labelling; calories; agenda-setting; qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/4939/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/24/4939/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:24:p:4939-:d:294805

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().