Estudos e Pesquisas em Psicologia
On-line version ISSN 1808-4281
Abstract
JUSTO, Ana Maria and CAMARGO, Brigido Vizeu. Overweight and obesity in the press: a retrospective analysis of Veja magazine. Estud. pesqui. psicol. [online]. 2017, vol.17, n.3, pp.817-839. ISSN 1808-4281.
The study aimed to investigate the social representations of excess body weight spread in a national magazine. During the period from 1968 to 2012, we found 198 internal reports and 21 cover reports related to overweight or obesity. All internal reports were submitted to multiple categorical analysis and cover reports were organized into a single corpus, submitted to a Descending Hierarchical Classification, by the software IRAMUTEQ. Although it has gained significantly more space in the journal since the 2000s, when obesity gradually shifts from an object of science to a matter of everyday life, the way of approaching the excess weight body has been relatively stable since the 1960s. It was observed that overweight is necessarily associated with slimming and fat appears as an element to be deleted. Much of the content analysis refers to the dissemination of technical knowledge and scientific discoveries directly related to weight loss, with nutrition as a hot topic. They are mentioned the difficulties faced by people with overweight to the extent that weight loss is necessary and requires a regimented routine, often against the pleasurable social activities.
Keywords : social representations; media; obesity; overweight.