Technology and Nutrition: Nutrition Misinformation on the Internet

Technology and Nutrition: Nutrition Misinformation on the Internet (Questionnaire) Name Institution Technology and Nutrition: Nutrition Misinformation on the Internet (Questionnaire) Misinformation on the internet has become, is still, and will continue being a problem as long as the internet exists and anyone can post his or her opinions on any subject with regulation. This problem might not affect individuals in a great way but its effects are felt in all sectors. According to research, there are professionals who sell their brands by giving out false information to entice the clients to their services and as far as we continue, having a money-driven economy the above behavior will not die out but increase. Many people who have fallen victim of misinformation or information which seem true but due to lack of evidence and nature of the language used the information given ends up being not helpful or cause damage. This is true especially in the medicine and health sector, where our core subject falls in: nutrition information on the internet is not only being given by nutritionist and doctors but popular malls, convenient stores, supermarkets, individual retailers, fitness centers, and individuals. This abundance of information sources might be good for the society since it is a source of knowledge but because the information on nutrition is not given purely by professionals there is always that loophole of opportunists and misinformation. To try and solve the above problem there is need to get to the base of the problem and this can be satisfied by understanding the people who put up these blogs, information and nutritional programs on the internet and the other significant sample is the consumers of these blogs and information on the internet. This will be satisfied through the use of a questionnaire. The target population will be students, people who have gym membership from selected few gyms, fitness centers, clinics in the neighborhood the government health centers and a major internet online survey. The growing body of knowledge which is concerned with diet and health, in general, has led to many individuals taking personal nutrition and health issues into their hands leaving the professionals out of the decisions they make. Individuals have become more reliant to nutritional information from the internet, radio, televisions, newspapers, family, and friends and this makes it easy for nutrition misinformation and fraud to increase. Self-proclaimed health experts have also emerged from this prevailing environment. Several surveys have been conducted on the subject and a worrying trend of people taking advice and recommendations from the internet has been observed through these surveys. Although there are many other instruments of collecting, data for this study the questionnaire is the most suitable research instrument for a comprehensive data gathering. Since the sample, the population is diverse and from all over the world three types of questionnaires will be used: open, closed and a general online questionnaire. A questionnaire is defined as a set of questions, which are developed for the main drive of collecting data and information. Similar to interviews as it is meant to probe the identified subject into answering or providing specific information about a certain topic but this kind of probing is written. Using questionnaire for this study will ensure that the researcher does not only get accurate data for analysis but also save on cost and time, which could have otherwise been spent if other modes of gathering information were utilized. Having deduced the other methods of information gathering, the questionnaire had the following advantages: it is relatively cheap since all you have to do is set the questions, print them, and get the...