Am J Med. 2007 Jul;120(7):604-9. Links
Quality of weight loss advice on internet forums.
Hwang KO, Farheen K, Johnson CW, Thomas EJ, Barnes AS, Bernstam EV.

Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical School at Houston, TX 77030, USA.

BACKGROUND: Adults use the Internet for weight loss information, sometimes by participating in discussion forums. Our purpose was to analyze the quality of advice exchanged on these forums. METHODS: This was a retrospective analysis of messages posted to 18 Internet weight loss forums during 1 month in 2006. Advice was evaluated for congruence with clinical guidelines; potential for causing harm; and subsequent correction when it was contradictory to guidelines (erroneous) or potentially harmful. Message- and forum-specific characteristics were evaluated as predictors of advice quality and self-correction. RESULTS: Of 3368 initial messages, 266 (7.9%) were requests for advice. Of 654 provisions of advice, 56 (8.6%) were erroneous and 19 of these 56 (34%) were subsequently corrected. Forty-three (6.6%) provisions of advice were harmful, and 12 of these 43 (28%) were subsequently corrected. Messages from low-activity forums (fewer messages) were more likely than those from high-activity forums to be erroneous (10.6% vs 2.4%, P < .001) or harmful (8.4% vs 1.2%, P < .001). In high-activity forums, 2 of 4 (50%) erroneous provisions of advice and 2 of 2 (100%) potentially harmful provisions of advice were corrected by subsequent postings. Compared with general weight loss advice, medication-related advice was more likely to be erroneous (P = .02) or harmful (P = .01). CONCLUSIONS: Most advice posted on highly active Internet weight loss forums is not erroneous or harmful. However, clinical and research strategies are needed to address the quality of medication-related advice.

Haha - cool! Not surprising of course.

Hopefully they stopped here, lol.

I do agree with it though, the smaller forums I belong too are terrible in terms of misinformation.

I don't belong to any other forum but this one. I haven't found any worth visiting. I have never seen you in another forum, btw. Well, besides Training.fitness, but I don't frequent there anymore.

I'm still waiting for yours' to open up...How much longer till that date?

I don't spend near the time on any other forum as I do here. I belong to a good 20 or so fitness/weight loss oriented sites though.

Mine will be up by summer.

Funny. Wondered what happened to old Trevor.

Sorry buddy, not really, just having a laugh.

Good post, made me think about things and opinions I have heard from so many others that figure unless you are paying weight watchers or some "pro" support "system" you are being mis-informed. Personally, this particular group, I can honestly say has changed my life. And definitely for good. Seems odd though to base a study solely on forums and support groups... Just think of the damage and insanity caused by other non-forum websites... The mind boggles....

This as I went to Amazon today to see their "amazing post boxing day health deals" (was bored at work, my slow season) and learned I could "extend my male "confidence"" or enlarge my "gazoonga's" (that exact term by the way (hilarious!)) or lose all the weight I want from the Hollywood Cookie Diet (that one killed me, 1 cookie as a meal replacement and you lose massive weight.... WOW!)

If I am being misinformed on a forum thank god, because if left to the piranhas out there on the rest of the internet I think we would all be very poor and unhappy.

Based on that alone I think we are all far better off on the forums....

Just a thought....

sirant

Hahahaha.

I think they choose forums b/c it is where/what a lot of people who have successfully lost weight are accrediting their success to nowadays.

Of course if they took a sample population of weight loss websites in general (not only forums) the results would have been weighted toward the poor advice side of things. There is much more bogus crap out there than sound information.

you can get good and bad advice anywhere -it's still up to the person to apply the advice and do the actual work...

Studies can be skewed to give any kind of result really...

Right, however....

If you took a random sample of 20 websites and compared said sample with a random selection of 20 forums.... I'd bet you a buck or two that the forums would win out in terms providing the most sound information.

That's just my belief.... this study isn't suggesting that all forums are good. It's simply suggesting that you can obtain sound information from places such as this.... which we obviously already knew.

Of course, but that's not what this is about.

Of course again.

In my experience anyways at least most forums are not looking for big bucks from the users, though of course those kind are out there too. And as much as it is up to the individual, I do appreciate forums, this one particular, for their ability to jump on and weed out the obvious fraudulent postings and gimmicks. Thats something you simply don't get from the average weight loss website.

I suppose there are people out there who have done the hollywood cookie diet and lost weight, and power to them, but I would rather hear objective advice from the folks here before I try anything. And it doesn't cost me a penny....

Unless of course y'all are going to start charging fees for using the site...

sirant

Haha, I've actually thought about that. Charging 1 dollar per year for every member of a forum. I think that would weed out the crap so to speak.

Nope, Would weed out allot of good members too. Particularly me.

Such is life really. It would put only serious people in the community, I'd think. I'm not saying you wouldn't lose some good members. That's a very real possibility.

But at the same time, it would do away with a lot of shit too.

It's not like I'd do it.

Just a thought.

Something I've noticed is that it all depends on the forum.

Here, people are willing to actually DISCUSS what constitutes a healthy approach and do more than just cover it with the blanket "every body is different". People are willing to discuss the relative merrits of Atkins vs. The Zone, South Beach vs. Ornish Reversal Diet, and so on.

One forum I participate on that has a series of threads for weight loss support - if you bring up any issues at all and don't just give blanket approval and support to what ever foolishness is being used, people get all in a snit and offended that perhaps their grapefruit and cashew nut regimen may not be healthy.

As for the internet being a good or bad place to get information about nutrition and weight loss - well each person must use discernment and look at the source of the information they are getting. I find anything from Atkins Nutritional web site to be suspect because they want to sell me a bunch of supplements and semi-food products, so their information is rather biased. The Sonoma Diet site, while also a fee per use site, is about whole, healthy foods, so I take their recommendations more seriously (I get the free newsletter - not going to pay $6 a month for what I get from Spark for free).

Even before the internet, the general public chose who they would listen to for nutritional advice, with a fair percentage choosing to follow Fad Plan XYZ because their neighbor's cousin's room mate lost 40 pounds on it. People get a charge out of bucking the establishment, even if that establishment has solid research behind it's recommendations. It's human nature and we are seeing that played out on the internet now

God Bless,
mik