8 Tips to Communicate Evidence-Based Fitness & Health Information
What do you get when you put a group of fitness and wellness bloggers together in a room? A fast-moving stream of tweets, a run on power outlets, lots of healthy snacking and stretching, and wonderful camaraderie.
I had the privilege of speaking at the Fitness & Health Social Media Conference (#FitSocial), on the stunning University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus on behalf of the American College of Sports Medicine.
This modified version of my presentation:
- highlights the huge reach of fitness and health bloggers
- provides 8 tips to ensure your content is accurate
- shares several new audience and outreach opportunities
- reveals 8 hot topics that you should keep an eye on
What hot topics would you add?
Many thanks to the attendees for all the wonderful feedback and energy, to Zephyr Adventures for their seamless organizing, and to the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center for sharing their world class facilities.
Recommended Resources
Writing
- HealthNewsReview.org, Independent expert reviews of news stories
- Understanding Risk: What Do Those Headlines Really Mean?
- Understanding Health News
- ACSM Media Referral Network
Reports
- Reports from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, including:
- Family Caregivers are Wired for Health, Susannah Fox, Maeve Duggan, Kristen Purcell, June, 2013
- The Demographics of Social Media Users — 2012, Maeve Duggan, Joanna Brenner, February, 2013
- The Social Life of Health Information, Susannah Fox, Sydney Jones, Pew Internet, June 2009
- A demographic and business model analysis of today’s app developer, Amy Cravens, Sept 2012 (PDF)
- Innovations in Health Literacy, March, 2011 Institute of Medicine Report
Certification Programs
- American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM)
- American Council on Exercise (ACE)
- National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM)
Audiences / Communities
Topics
- Quantified Self , #quantifiedself
- Wearable Tech Pinterest Board (300+ tracking gadgets)
- The National Weight Control Registry
- Kickstarter
- Indiegogo
- Inactivity: Hamilton MT, Hamilton DG, Zderic TW. Role of low energy expenditure and sitting in obesity, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Diabetes. 2007 Nov;56(11):2655-67.
- Advocacy: ACSM Policy Center
- Advocacy: National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity
- The Microbiome In Sports Performance & Health
Related posts
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Weight Loss Maintainers
- Is your activity tracking gadget accurate? Do you care?
- Twelve Everyday Health Rules–From 1908
- Sweating the Myth of the Exercise Pill
Blog Posts from attendees
- Six Amazing (and Possibly Gross) Health Future Trends, Alexandra Williams, Kymberly Williams-Evans, Fun and Fit
- The low-down on Fitsocial 2013, Melissa R. Burton, The Valentine RD
- Favorites from #FitSocial, Alli, Don’t panic mom
- FitSocial Recipe: Asian-Styled Quinoa Salad, Kelly, No Thanks To Cake,
- Friday Roundup: Move More, Eat Smarter for Faster Metabolism, Suzanne Digre, Workout Nirvana
- Session Notes From Fit Social 2013
Images in presentation
- Bay Bay to Breakers 2009: Running Masses, Image courtesy of Alan Grinberg via Flickr Creative Commons
- Done and not done, Image courtesy of Daniel Kulinski via Flickr Creative Commons
- Brown Norway rat, image courtesy of Bill Branson, National Institutes of Health, www.genome.gov
- Global Average Temperature vs. Number of Pirates, image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
- Kale Chips!, image courtesy of Melly Kay via Flickr Creative Commons
- Move concept technology garment, Jennifer Darmour, Electricfoxy
- TeKila Dress, Shiping Toohey
- Screen-printed carbon sensor arrays, Yang-Li Yang, et al, Thick-film textile-based
- Deadline, Image courtesy of Jonathan Bliss via Flickr Creative Commons
- Watch Cycle of life (concept), Andy Kurovets, Coroflot
- Crosswords & coffee, Image courtesy of acorn via Flickr Creative Commons
- Brain Proteomics in 3D, image courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory via Flickr Creative Commons
- Human gut bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, United States Department of Agriculture, courtesy of www.genome.gov
Hey thanks for listing our post! We had fun checking out your textile e-tracking Pinterest board. Now we hope to find you at IDEA speaking as we will FOR SHO’ attend. Again, thanks for the presentation, which we wish had lasted another half hour at least!
Thanks for including us in your list. We LOVED your presentation; both in content and personality. We hope you come again! We want to be your groupies.
Kymberly and Alexandra, It was great to meet both of you at the mtg – I think we could power lots of e-textiles and tracking devices with your energy! Have you attended the ACSM Health & Fitness Summit? You should go cover it for the blogosphere, and also look into presenting in the future. http://www.acsm.org/attend-a-meeting/2014-health-fitness-summit-exposition
[…] Communication of Evidence-Based Health and Wellness Information presented by Dr. Carol Torgan of the American College of Sports Medicine […]
Thank you so much for including my post on your list! I loved hearing your presentation – your information was interesting and your delivery was really engaging!
You should definitely apply to be a speaker at the FitBloggin’ Conference in 2014! Bloggers should know about how to get expert information and the topics of the future.
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