The prevalence of reporting can be explained by the fact that many of the topics being addressed are not recent news, but extended news or permanent news. In other words, it does not allude to anything that has just happened, but looks at questions that might arouse the audience’s interest at any time: the virtues of certain food, the benefits of a diet, the problem of added sugars, etc.

News only represents 10.6% of articles in elpais.com but rises to 29.7% in lavanguardia.com. Many of these news items correspond to initiatives from institutions to improve citizens’ eating habits such as “Canaries is also planning a tax on fizzy drinks and other sugary food” (elpais.com, 04/05/2017), “Public Health recommends reducing sugar-enriched food for children” (lavanguardia.com, 21/11/2017).

Opinion texts are limited to 10.6% in elpais.com, with a scarce 2.9% in lavanguardia.com. In this section, the Madrid-based newspaper includes contributions from Julio Basulto or Aitor Sánchez in the “Nutrir con ciencia” section. In the case of the Barcelona-based publication, Toni Massanés’s articles in the “Comer” section deserve a mention.

Table 8: Types of headlines on nutrition

Source: Compiled by author.

In the nutrition field, it is rare to find purely informative headlines, based on the subject+verb+predicate scheme, that provide readers with fundamental clues on what they will find in the accompanying text. In the case of lavanguardia.com, the presence of this type of headline approximately matches the number of news items. However, the majority of headers on food would be framed within what Núñez Ladevéze calls appellative headlines, namely “Any that use the language to call attention to a fact that they do not presume to know about but that they are not informed about” (1991: 222). The author explains that “headlines can be more or less appellative, as they can help to strengthen or modify recipients’ attitudes” (1995: 62). Antonio López, referring to this type of headlines, states that “they are usually topical, in the sense that they mention a topic, but they do not give complete information on it” (2019: 68).

In a considerable percentage of cases, appellative headlines raise questions “Can you lose weight eating fast food?” (elpais.com, 12/05/2017), “Why does vegetarian food want to look like meat?” (lavanguardia.com, 17/01/2017).