Abstract
The desire to be tan is a phenomenon that public health researchers have investigated, as exposure to UV radiation increases the chances of developing skin cancer. Media messages in women’s magazines have been shown to contribute to this problem. Much less is known about the prevalence of skin cancer prevention messages in these magazines. This study’s aim was to identify the number and type of articles and advertised products devoted to skin health (sun protection and skin cancer prevention in particular) within five popular U.S. greater than women’s health and fitness magazines. We analyzed articles and advertisements over seven months of issues of the following popular women’s health and fitness magazines: Fitness, Health, Self, Shape, and Women’s Health, March 2013 through September 2013. Overall, 31 issues of the five magazines with a total of 780 articles and 1,986 advertisements were analyzed. Of the 780 articles, a mere 2.9% (n=23) were devoted to skin. Of the 258 skin product advertisements, less than 20% of the products contained sun protection factor (SPF). These findings suggest that women’s health and fitness magazines can improve their efforts in informing women of skin cancer risks and preventive measures to minimize these risks. The role of these magazines in building health literacy among their readers is also discussed.
Highlights
The most common form of cancer among Americans is skin cancer (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013)
We found that only a small fraction of the hundreds of articles that appeared in the spring and summer issues of the most popular women’s health and fitness magazines in 2013 were devoted to skin and, of those, about one-third addressed skin cancer and risk reduction
Advertisements featuring products to protect the skin from the deleterious effects of the sun like sunless tanners, sun block with sun protection factor (SPF) ≥30, and skin products such as moisturizers with SPF were represented as often as those without SPF
Summary
The most common form of cancer among Americans is skin cancer (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013). A body of research has examined tanning-related media messages in magazines, little attention has been paid to skin protection content in articles and advertisements for products to reduce risk in magazines and no studies have assessed the prevalence of protection/risk reduction messages in popular women’s health and fitness magazines. We contend that magazine articles and advertisements can be an important and accurate source of information for readers on skin cancer prevention and sun protection thereby enhancing readers' health literacy in this area. To assess the extent to which this magazine genre includes information on skin health, our study’s aim, was to identify the number and type of articles and advertised products devoted to skin health (sun protection and skin cancer prevention in particular) within five popular women’s health and fitness magazines. We aimed to assess 1) the type of product displayed (sun block, sunless tanner, other skin products), and 2) presence and amount of sun protection factor (SPF) in the products advertised
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