Obesity is a pressing issue in the UK, and weight management medications are seen as a crucial step to reducing its impact on individuals and wider society. However, sensationalised media coverage often distorts the public’s understanding of health solutions, including weight management jabs, leading to an decreased uptake of potentially beneficial health interventions.
This blog post explores how we as communications professionals can ensure we’re providing accurate, reliable communications amid the spread of misinformation.
by Michael Mbanunu
Weight management solutions have dominated media headlines in recent months. With widespread coverage often comes sensationalism — a trend that can:
For those of us working in communications, especially within healthcare, we carry a responsibility to ensure the information we share is accurate, balanced, and trustworthy. This is especially important when public discourse is shaped by exaggerated or misleading media narratives and headlines.
Take, for example, a recent Daily Mail headline claiming that over 400 people had been hospitalised due to weight loss injections. While attention-grabbing, this framing without providing immediate context about the relative likelihood of experiencing adverse effects can be misleading and may deter people from considering evidence-based treatments that could improve their health. Certainly, the number of number of people affected by serious side effects from weight loss medication pales into insignificance against the hundreds of thousands of people who experience heart attacks, strokes or other life-changing cardiovascular illnesses where obesity is a common contributing factor.
Sensationalised reporting might boost clicks, but it risks undermining public trust and informed decision-making.
The risks of being first
For many media outlets they often compete to break stories quickly, sometimes at the expense of thorough research. This results in compromising the accuracy of the news they share.
A notable example is the 2012 measles outbreak in Swansea and South Wales, where sensationalised media coverage linking the MMR vaccine to autism led many parents to resist vaccinating their children.
This resulted in an outbreak that hospitalised 88 people and caused one death. This emphasises why there needs to be more consideration into what we’re posting, as any inaccurate or even ambiguous communication can have detrimental effect on the public. In an era where social media allows news to be spread like wildfire – and most users don’t even read articles before sharing them – a poorly-articulated piece of coverage can quickly cause significant damage.
How algorithms promote false information
Working within communications, I’ve seen social media channels algorithms change significantly in the last few years. This is especially evident with X, where high engagement and traffic drive visibility, regardless of whether the information is true. Without the checks and balances of regulatory oversight, false information is at least as likely to be shown to users as real credible sources are.
In fact, in 2022 it was found that weight management-related news on social media, especially X, often contained false and stigmatising information. Additionally, almost 50% of tweets mentioning "diet pills" included stigmatising language, such as "personal blame for obesity" or "the dangers of weight loss medications". As medical science offers us a route towards finally turning the tide on obesity, social media misinformation risks blocking that critical path.
So, what can we as communicators do to combat this?
Many of the lessons from tackling the last wave of mass health misinformation – Covid-19 and the vaccine rollout – will still feel fresh to communicators working in the public or health sectors. We believe that building on these insights is key to avoid turning obesity drugs into the same battleground:
Listening and learning – one of the biggest takeaways from the pandemic was the importance of co-design and co-production of communications to overcome vaccine hesitancy, particularly in minoritised groups. Given health inequalities related to obesity disproportionately impact many of the same minoritised groups (such as people from the global majority), the same tactics would appear key to building trust in weight loss treatments.
Encouraging useful dialogue – civil conversations are the antidote to the filter-bubble world that social media can often become. While it is sometimes difficult to have these conversations online, communicators can do their part by demonstrating that healthcare professionals are always open to non-judgemental discussions about treatments – and reminding the public about who they can trust.
Mitigating the actions of bad actors – whether trolls, dubious commercial entities or bots, “bad actors” drive a significant volume of conversation around many contentious or divisive issues. Proper moderation and monitoring will help to reduce the confusion that can be sown by these unwelcome and unhelpful voices joining the discussion around weight loss medicines.
Conclusion
Navigating information in this digital age can be challenging, particularly when it comes to locating useful, reliable sources. Addressing obesity is complex, with considerations for communicators around stigma, health inequalities and reframing obesity as a disease rather than a lifestyle choice; there needs to be a level of sensitivity to how we approach it.
We’d love to hear about how weight loss medications are being communicated and the lessons that you’re learning – do get in touch with us
Michael Mbanunu is marketing and communications assistant at Health Innovation Network South London.
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image via Evg Kowalievska
