Getting all your info from the Internet is like playing poker. You could be falling for a bluff or lapping up bogus data because a glitzy website purports to hold the truth, just like the cocky player opposite you who raised the stakes. Sixty percent of people said their online research influenced how they dealt with their condition, according to a 2009 Social Life of Health Information report by the US non-profit think tank Pew Research Center. Googling health and fitness information is such a phenomenon that it has its own name: “cyberchondria,” in which the patients believe they’re sick from what they’ve read on the net. Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the truth from the lies. Can you call their bluffs? Try this quiz on for size.


(First published in the October 2010 issue of Women's Health Philippines, Slim-Down Strategies section as "Can you read our poker face?;" adapted for use in Female Network; photo by Walt Stoneburner via Flickr Creative Commons. Additional text by Patricia Dayacap.)