Research

Adherence

Statewide public education campaigns using non-stigmatizing, mass-media advertising can significantly improve the public's ability to accurately identify overweight and obesity based on height and weight, and increase awareness of obesity as a personal health issue.

If you are a health educator or policymaker, use mass media campaigns that focus on factual, non-shaming information about weight status. Encourage people to check their own BMI and health risks objectively. This increases awareness and accuracy in identifying obesity, which is a necessary first step before expecting behavior change.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
The education campaign increased understanding of obesity as a personal health issue... In the postadvertising survey, individuals were less optimistic about their weight and their health behaviors and were more accurate at identifying overweight and obesity based on height and weight.
Adam Gilden Tsai et al. · American Journal of Health Education · 2014

Why this rating

Quasi-experimental pre-post design without a control group; low survey response rate (23%).

Source

Changes in Obesity Awareness, Obesity Identification, and Self-Assessment of Health: Results from a Statewide Public Education Campaign

Adam Gilden Tsai et al. · American Journal of Health Education · 2014

DOI 10.1080/19325037.2014.945668

cross_sectional · n=2208Cited 12×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →