Doctor Internet.

We've all seen the advertisements on television telling us to "press play" and eat "5+ a day" but how many of us live our lives by these guidelines? Emma van Beurden finds a vast amount of help online for anyone trying to improve their lifestyle through exercise and healthy eating.

We all know that eating fresh fruit and vegetables is essential for improving your diet, but many of us find it difficult to come up with exciting new ways of making them enticing enough to eat. At www.5aday.co.nz you can find new ways to spice up those fruit and vegies. Annabel Langbein has created nutritious and inspiring recipes for the website, ranging from fritters and sandwiches to salads and Easter French toast.

Another site that promotes healthy eating to Kiwi kids is www.vegetables.co.nz, which not only offers healthy and fun recipes but also advice on how fruit and vegetables should be stored; for example, tomatoes lose their flavour if you store them in the fridge. It also has tips for cooking them properly to absorb the right nutrients. This site provides information about eating "5 + a day the colour way", which basically means eating fruit or vegetables of the same colours that you'd find in a rainbow. Coloured fruit and vegetables have a variety of minerals and vitamins, which are needed to maintain not only a healthy and fit body, but a healthy mind as well. There's a guide to which fruit and vegetables complete the rainbow and what nutrients you will get from eating them.

Get active

So we have been introduced to the basics of improving our diet. Next comes increasing the amount of exercise we do. At www.sparc.org.nz the athlete and the casual dog walker are all accounted for. Sparc is an organisation dedicated to getting New Zealanders active and healthy.

We all lead busy lives and trying to find time to do regular exercise (30 minutes a day is recommended) can be a struggle. Sparc has some easy solutions to help incorporate exercise into our daily routines through its Push Play campaign. The website offers an online activator, which helps you choose fitness activities to suit your lifestyle; my favourite was active shopping, but they recommend taking the stairs, washing the car by hand or getting off the bus a few stops early.

Give blood

Giving blood to those in need is an amazing thing to do. There is a shortage of blood donors in New Zealand and at www.nzblood.co.nz you can find out why it is so important for healthy people to give to those who are not so fortunate. Donated blood is used to treat people who have suffered burns, are in hospital emergency wards suffering from shock, or receiving cancer treatment or who have diseases like haemophilia. These people are in desperate need of donated blood.

The site has guidelines for those thinking about donating blood; you have to be over 16, weigh over 50kg and be in good health. It also has a list of all the clinics around the country where you can give blood.

Health education

The internet is also extremely useful for helping us look into health problems that we may encounter in the course of our lives. Let's say that one morning you wake up with a puffy lip and the evening before you had eaten a kiwifruit. Instead of going to the doctor straight away, you could jump on the net to research your symptoms.

At www.bbc.co.uk/health you can read up on many different illnesses and conditions - which can be helpful for your own wellbeing as well as educating friends and family about their health. The site covers health issues from allergies to addictions, sleeping problems to eye disorders and cancer to the common cold. You can ask an online doctor here about your health problems and read up on different solutions to improving your health, such as reaching your healthy body mass index (BMI) or controlling your hayfever.

The New Zealand version of this site, www.familydoctor.co.nz, offers health advice for men, women, children, people who play sport and those who are thinking of travelling. It lets you search through articles to find exactly what you are looking for no matter how obscure.

My only advice for those who decide to search these sites is to search with care. If you are a complete hypochondriac with a bellyache it is probably not the best idea to visit one of these sites and self-diagnose. It's also important that you see a doctor if you have a health problem rather than relying on information you find on the internet - there is a reason that it takes so long to get a medical degree.

Consider it more of a guide to improving your health and educating yourself about illnesses and health. And if all else fails, you can at least visit www.bbc.co.uk health's message board and amuse yourself reading posts by people who have taken their sore backs and headaches too far.

Map your moles 

Two out of three New Zealanders will be affected by skin cancer during their lifetime, according to www.molemap.co.nz. This site is dedicated to educating us about protecting ourselves from the sun. Having a mole map done at an early age can help guard against skin cancer. Having one done yearly will monitor the changes your skin - particularly moles - undergoes when exposed to the sun.

People of European descent are more at risk of developing skin cancer and should get a mole map done if they have a personal or family history of skin cancer or melanoma, if they expose themselves regularly to the sun or if they have irregular and large moles. It's also recommended that if you are concerned about your skin and moles, then it does no harm to get them checked out. 

Watch out for bird flu

After all the publicity about the mysterious bird flu epidemic, many people started worrying about how to protect themselves. At www.moh.govt.nz/birdflu the Ministry of Health has a page educating New Zealanders on the subject. You can search articles and prepare yourself in case of an influenza epidemic in New Zealand - and be aware of the symptoms. It suggests that the virus can cause mild or severe degrees of illness depending on your age and general health. It tells us about steps to take to prevent the disease from spreading, such as covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze, washing your hands frequently and being aware of hygiene when preparing and cooking poultry.

www.5aday.co.nz
www.vegetables.co.nz
www.sparc.org.nz
www.bbc.co.uk/health
www.familydoctor.co.nz
www.moh.govt.nz/birdflu
www.molemap.co.nz
www.nzblood.co.nz