Goals:
Any content OAC publishes should always serve a greater purpose. First and foremost, our content should follow OAC’s core pillars:
- Educate: Give readers credible, science-based information about obesity, weight management and health, along with opportunities to learn more.
- Raise Awareness: Show how obesity is a complex, chronic disease and bring attention to obesity-related issues, including: weight stigma, lack of education and limited access to obesity healthcare.
- Support: Assist people in their personal health journeys with resources and information they can use to make informed decisions.
- Empower: Elevate individuals affected by obesity and equip them with resources, tools and information to take control of their health in a way that is personally meaningful to them.
Along with meeting our core pillars, our content should:
- Compel People to Act: Lead with a call-to-action where appropriate. Show readers how and why their time, money and support makes a difference.
- Lead the Conversation: We should aim to publish content in a timely manner that asserts OAC’s authority and position statements on obesity-related news and updates.
- Be Current: Publish content that is relative to new research, health trends, news stories/updates and hot-button issues.
- Guide: Provide opportunities to navigate to other OAC resources and content so readers can find what is most important to them.
- Build Trust: By publishing ongoing content that meets all of the above goals, we try to build a relationship with readers that reflects OAC’s mission and conveys a sense of understanding and solidarity.
Principles:
In order to achieve our goals, our content should follow these guiding principles:
- Be People-First: Our writing must always use People-First Language and separate the individual from their disease.Examples:
- “The man is affected by obesity” – Not “The man is obese.”
- “Individuals affected by obesity are at risk for health issues” – NOT “Obese people are at risk for health issues.”
- Be Useful: Strive to give readers information about obesity, weight and health that they normally can’t get elsewhere. Our content should meet the various needs of readers and be applicable.
- Be Appropriate. Write in a way that suits the situation and adapt a tone that fits the topic as well as our audience.
- Appeal to Different Audiences: Diversify our content to meet the various needs and interests of different populations of people. Ex: gender, race and socioeconomic status.