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Nutrition sites give Web users something to chew on
But watch out for the sales pitches
From Correspondent Carolyn O'Neil
ATLANTA (CNN) -- The World Wide Web offers a cornucopia of information, from cars to cardiac surgery, and a recent survey found that 37 percent of those using the Internet go browsing for health information.
Those so inclined can find a bulging buffet of Web sites to choose from. Many sites single out specific topics, such as vegetarianism.
Or as Jeanne Goldberg, professor of nutrition at Tufts University, points out, you can be more generic.
"You can type the word 'nutrition' in one of the search engines and get close to 200,000 hits," she says.
But Web users should be wary of sites that purport to offer nutritional information when in fact they are making a sales pitch. One such site offers plenty of information on vitamins, but it's really there to sell supplements.
"If they're selling a product, particularly over the Internet, I don't list them in my site, 'cause that's the primary purpose, and I wonder about the quality of the information," says Professor Shortie McKinney of Drexel University.
McKinney's nutrition Web site guide was a hit with registered dietitians who got a chance to surf the Internet at the American Dietetic Association's annual meeting.
Nutrition Navigator takes 200 pages
New this week on the Web is a site to help consumers sort through nutrition on the Internet. Nutrition Navigator, launched by Goldberg, rates 200 pages on the World Wide Web.
"The amount of information is burgeoning," she says. "There is no control over what gets on the Web. Consumers are increasingly going to it, and we saw an opportunity to bring order out of chaos."
Some Web sites that might seem to be mere marketing tools got good grades from Nutrition Navigator.
"You cannot tell a Web site by its cover, and you cannot tell a Web site by who's sponsored it," Goldberg says.
So as more Web guides go online, cruising the Internet for credible nutrition advice could be a healthier experience.
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