La cobertura periodística de la obesidad en la prensa espa？ola (2000-2005)

antecedents: obesity is a public health problem in spain. mass media are considered a useful tool for public health. objectives: to explore press coverage of obesity in spanish newspapers between 2000-2005, taking into account the social context in relation to frequency of occurrence, main sources of information and focus. materials and methods: quantitative content analysis of 690 news published in el pais, el mundo and abc were performed. calculation of frequencies and odds ratio (or) with confidence intervals (ci) of 95% and statistical significance were performed. results: press coverage of obesity increased between 2000 (n=25) to 2005 (n=185). mainly it was focused on complaints (36,4%) and magnitude of the problem (15,7%) at the expense of news about initiatives-political strategies (3,8%). it was highlighted that men were the main sources of information (75,5%) and women as first signatories of the news (56,1%). men from the medical/sanitary field (or=1,98;ci95%,1,11-3,57) and women from the field of policy (or= 2,54; ci95%,1,46-4,42) were more likely to be the main source of information. conclusions: media coverage of obesity in the period 2000-2005 increased, coinciding with the development of policy responses on this issue. mainly, the news has reported the existence of the problem. it highlights the limited coverage of initiatives-policy strategies that could be related to an incipient interaction between the political and the media agenda.