Health and fitness sites: a category to read carefully

Nothing in this directory is medical advice, and nothing listed in this category should be treated as a substitute for a clinician who can examine you. That is worth saying at the top rather than in a footer, because health is the category where the distance between what sites claim and what evidence supports is widest.

The markers of a health site worth reading are consistent. It names its authors and their qualifications. It dates and periodically reviews its content. It links to research rather than to other articles. It distinguishes between what is well established, what is contested, and what is preliminary. And it does not sell the supplement it just recommended.

That last point is the one that catches most people. A very large share of health content on the web exists to sell a product, and the article is the sales mechanism. It is not always disclosed, but it is usually visible: if a piece arrives at a specific branded product, read it as advertising.

The subcategories cover nutrition, fitness, weight loss, health care, and men's, women's and child health. Weight loss in particular attracts the most aggressive marketing on the consumer web, and the claims there deserve the most scepticism.