Background: Mass media campaigns are a key population-level preventive health strategy for addressing overweight and obesity. The present review synthesised recent evidence on implemented obesity prevention campaigns and their outcomes, identifying key features of effective campaign development and implementation to inform future campaign strategies and priorities.
Method: Recent (2019-2026) evaluations of obesity prevention mass media campaigns were identified via systematic searching of two electronic databases (Medline, PubMed), supplemented with grey literature and hand searching. Campaign design, implementation, and key outcomes were reviewed.
Results: Forty-three evaluation documents, covering 19 campaigns, were assessed. The review identified a need for campaigns that adopt multi-faceted approaches (addressing multiple obesity-related behaviours), use high-reach media channels (e.g., television), and are sustained over several years, to support behaviour change at scale. Further findings highlighted the need for ongoing tracking of longer-term outcomes and population-level campaign impacts, especially for behaviour change outcomes, and the need for detailed reporting of campaign development and implementation processes to provide greater insight into the quality and reach of implemented campaigns.
Conclusion: Findings reinforce the value of mass media campaigns as a valuable and scalable tool for obesity prevention, particularly when strategically designed and sustained over time. However, findings also highlighted several priority areas for developing effective campaigns. These findings have the potential to improve the development and implementation of future obesity prevention mass media campaigns to maximise their impact for the prevention of overweight and obesity.