Responses to gestational weight management guidance: a thematic analysis of comments made by women in online parenting forums

Background: The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published guidance on weight management in pregnancy in July 2010[1], and this received considerable press coverage across a range of media. This offered an opportunity to examine how gestational weight management guidance was received by UK women. Methods: A thematic analysis was conducted of 400 posts made in UK-based parenting internet forums in the week following the publication of the NICE guidance. This allowed us to examine the naturally occurring comments from 202 women who posted about the guidance on public forums. Results: Three main themes were identified and explored: i) Perceived control/responsibility ii) Risk perception iii) Confused messages. Conclusions: Women differed in their perceptions of the level of control that they had over being overweight with some feeling responsible and motivated to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Others felt there were multiple factors influencing their weight issues beyond their control. There were reports of feeling guilty about the impact of weight on the growing baby and experiencing significant obesity stigma from the public and health professionals. Information about the risks of overweight and obesity in pregnancy were difficult messages for women to hear, and for health professionals to deliver. Women reported being confused by the messages that they received. Health messages need to be delivered sensitively to women, and health professionals need support and training to do this. Risk information should always be accompanied with clear advice and support to help women to manage their weight in pregnancy. Keywords: internet-mediated research, gestational weight gain, parenting forums, NICE, women, views, risk perception</p

Verspreidings- en Implementatieplan Life 21

In februari 2007 zijn de sectie Communicatiewetenschap van Wageningen Universiteit en de afdeling Gezondheidsbevordering van de GGD Eindhoven gestart met het verspreidings- en implementatieplan LIFE 21. Ingegaan op de achtergronden van het project LIFE 21 en op het ontstaan van de discursieve actie methode. Tijdens LIFE21 is deze methode ontwikkeld waarmee jongeren in staat waren hun eigen gesprekken op toegankelijke wijze te analyseren. Ook komt aan de orde hoe de methodiek aansluit bij huidige ontwikkelingen in gezondheidsbevorderin

Natural Food. Organizing 'Responsiveness' in Responsible Innovation of Food Technology

Responsible innovation requires mutual responsiveness between various stakeholders around technological innovation. But in public engagement exercises, concerns about ethical, cultural and political impacts are too easily set aside, so that no one is actually encouraged to discuss responsibilities for these impacts. A typical example in the field of food innovation is the consumer’s recurring concern for natural food. In discussions, both consumers and engineers tend to consider the meaning of naturalness as subjective and private. In this chapter, we present an interdisciplinary design tool for public engagement that is more hospitable to such concerns, based on the discursive action method and techno-ethical imagination. We describe the advancements we made and the obstacles we faced when applying this tool in two dialogue workshops on novel foods and naturalness.keywordsresponsivenessfood technologynaturalnesssoft concernsstakeholder dialogueconversation analysistechno-ethical imagination

Turning Adolescents Into Analysts of Their Own Discourse: Raising Reflexive Awareness of Everyday Talk to Develop Peer-Based Health Activities

Abstract: Adopting principles applied in discursive psychology and translated to suit the practice of participatory health education, we describe in this article the five steps of the discursive action method (DAM). With this method, adolescents are stimulated to explore their own everyday conversations to become consciously aware of how they talk about health issues with their peers. Using detailed accounts of adolescents’ experiences with the method, we present some first indications of the kinds of results this method can achieve. We show that the strength of the method specifically lies in two closely related domains: (a) stimulating adolescents’ attentiveness to interactional problems and strategies as they occur in their own everyday talk, and (b) operating as a catalyst for developing participatory health activities aimed at peers. Keywords: adolescents; communication; discourse analysis; health behavior; health educatio