A qualitative research study comparing nutrition advice communicated by registered Dietitian and non-Registered Dietitian bloggers

Background: Regardless of credentials or expertise, anyone can disseminate nutrition information online, putting the public at risk of receiving unreliable and harmful advice. Registered Dietitians (RD) are nutrition professionals; however, it is unknown how nutrition information or advice online differs between RDs and non-RDs. The objective of this study was to compare nutrition advice communicated on blogs by RD and non-RD bloggers.Methods: A blog-ranking platform, based on search and social media metrics, was used to identify the top-ranked, English-language nutrition blogs written by RDs (n = 10) and non-RDs (n = 10) available through public domain. From each blog, the 20 most recent nutrition-related posts were selected, resulting in a final sample size of 400 blog posts (RD = 200 blog posts; non-RD = 200 blog posts) for qualitative document analysis.Results: Although two themes were found for both RD and non-RD blogs: nutrition recommendations and service promotion/sponsorship, several themes were unique to RD or non-RD blogs. For example, RD blogs were primarily lifestyle blogs that promoted healthy lifestyles. Whereas, non-RD blogs focused on challenging conventional medicine while promoting alternative medicine, establishing their credibility, and had conflicting messages.Conclusions: The internet is an effective tool for communicating nutrition information to a wide audience. RD bloggers can optimize their impact by providing evidence-based nutrition education, addressing current health trends, and making advice achievable for low resource populations.