DOI: 10.36347/sjahss.2018.v06i04.013

Pages: 870-876

Health awareness has been driving more consumers to take an active role in their lives. The paper discusses the findings of the study which established that cashing on this trend; many companies have come up with a variety of supplements that ―delay ageing, enhance vitality and fulfil nutritional requirements of the body. This exploratory study was conducted to understand the nature of health supplements being presented by Indian print media (one English and one local language newspaper/media) over the period September 2010-2012 using the Public Health perspective. The study employed Inductive Content Analysis. The findings established that keeping in mind the plethora of advertisements on supplements, it would not be wrong to comment that supplements are being aggressively advertised in the newspapers. In the wake of weak regulation, many companies have been making misleading claims related to health which in majority of the cases have not been backed with scientific evidence. Further, the claims of some of the supplements end up complicating the relationship between health and beauty. And some even promote gendered notions of health. Further study is required in this regard otherwise owing to lax regulation the companies will continue to come up with innovative ways of promoting their products which might have implications for the health of the consumers.