Where Teens Go For Health Info

Parents might think teens only use the Internet to goof off on Facebook, but many teens may be using the Web to stay healthy.

A new study found that the majority of teens reported using the Internet as a health resource on a wide number of topics.

"We often hear about all the negative things kids are doing online, but teens are using the Internet to take care of themselves and others around them," said lead author Ellen Wartella, PhD, of Northwestern University's Center on Media and Human Development in Evanston, IL, in a news release.

Dr. Wartella and team surveyed 1,156 teens between the ages of 13 and 18 across the US to examine their use of the Internet for health-related issues.

Eighty-four percent of the teens said they looked for health information online. Around half of these teens (58 percent) said they often started with a Google search.

Fitness and nutrition were the most common topics that teens sought online. Of the patients, 42 percent said they researched fitness or exercise on the Internet. Thirty-six percent said they searched for information on diet and nutrition.

The next most common topics teens looked for online included stress and anxiety (researched by 19 percent of teens), sexually transmitted diseases (18 percent), puberty (18 percent), depression and other mental health issues (16 percent) and sleep (16 percent).

These searches seemed to be private — not social — affairs. Most of the teens in this study (88 percent) said they would not be likely to post a health-related question to a social networking site.