Research Roundup
Exploring Australian News Media Portrayals of Sustainable and Plant-Based Diets
24 April 2024
The news media plays a key role in influencing public opinion and behaviour about health and diet. A new Australian study (1) has explored how sustainable/plant-based diets have been portrayed in Australian news between 2018 and 2020. The Factiva global news database was searched for online news articles and was selected if they included keywords in the headline or first three paragraphs: ‘sustainable diet’, ‘plant based diet’, ‘plant proteins’, ‘meat substitute’, ‘meat alternative’, ‘meatless’, ‘fake meat’, ‘lab grown meat’ and ‘clean meat’.
Of 350 news articles identified, more than half encouraged increasing the intake of plant-based foods (53.5%) and reducing animal-derived food intake (55.2%). Several reasons for such a shift from animal protein-based diets were health benefits (15.4%), environmental impacts (11.2%), animal welfare (4.8%), seasonality and local food intake (5.3%), avoiding overconsumption (4.5%) and food wastage (4.5%).
Two major themes were formed from the analysis of articles discussing sustainable and healthy diets: 1) food choices and behaviours related to sustainable and healthy diets; and 2) social, environmental, and economic reasons for and impacts of sustainable and healthy diets.
This is the first study in Australia that described the news media coverage of sustainable diets over 3 years. With any study, there are limitations. Specific to this study were the chosen search terms that potentially did not capture all references to sustainable diets throughout the specified time frame. Using the term ‘plant-based diet’ in the initial search may have led to most of the included articles being about eating more plants and less animal products. In addition, the study concentrated on only one or two components of sustainable diets and their associated benefits.
Reference
- Ronto R, Alves Lopes CV, Bogueva D, Davis B, Bhatti AJ, Navarrete P, Chau JY. Exploring Australian News Media Portrayals of Sustainable and Plant-Based Diets. Nutrients. 2024;16(7):996. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16070996
