BMJ 2001;322:863 ( 7 April )

Letters

Television programmes could market breast feeding

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---Henderson et al's paper looking at how breast feeding and bottle feeding are represented in the British media raises no surprises.1 Perhaps this is the time for health authorities to consider working with the media to create and implement a social marketing initiative, using positive health messages, in soap operas or other programmes.

South Africa had an excellent social marketing initiative when I was there in 1996. Called "Soul City," it was based around eight key health messages, of which breast feeding was one. It was targeted at low income women aged 18-35 through a television soap opera, Soul City, with a tie-in radio programme and a specially written magazine.

In Britain, as happened in South Africa, market research would need to be done to ascertain the sorts of programmes that the target group watches and how these could benefit from input. Henderson et al's paper is a good . . . [Full text of this article]
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Relevant Article

Representing infant feeding: content analysis of British media portrayals of bottle feeding and breast feeding
Lesley Henderson, Jenny Kitzinger, and Josephine Green
BMJ 2000 321: 1196-1198. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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