Colorado State University is helping Colorado residents live and eat better through the new website, Live Eat Play, which provides research based nutrition information to the public.

The website provides nutrition information that encourages an overall healthy lifestyle by promoting good eating habits and being physically active through resources like educational handouts, according to Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist Laura Bellows.

The CSU Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, CSU Extension Nutrition, Food Safety and Health and The Kendall Anderson Nutrition Center collaborated to create the site.

“Extension is the outreach component,” Bellows said. “It’s part of our mission as a land grant university.”

CSU Extension provides healthy living information to all Colorado residents, according to Bellows.

Melissa Wdowik, Food Science and Human Nutrition faculty member and director of the Kendall Anderson Nutrition Center, said the website was created to have a place where people can go for education and information on nutrition healthy living.

“We wanted the website to be for education,” Wdowik said.

Bellows said she had the original idea for the website and to pull together multiple resources at CSU to create place to find accurate nutrition information.

“(The website is about) taking research-based information and translating the information in an understandable and usable way,” Bellows said.

Bellows said students did a lot of the work in creating the website, including Kelly Niebaum, second year graduate student in Food Science and Human Nutrition.

Niebaum said she helped with writing and developing materials for the site, such as handouts.

“I feel like it’s a very user friendly website that promotes nutrition education in a really positive and fun way,” Niebaum said.

Wdowik said they saw a need for the website because there is so much inaccurate nutrition information on the web.

“We want people to have the most accurate, up to date and science-based information,” Wdowik said.

Wdowik said that the website has become a nice compliment to The Kendall Anderson Nutrition Center, which provides nutrition services to the public.

If someone sees something on the website they want to learn more about, they can come to the center, or if someone comes into the center with questions, Wdowik said she can direct them to the website for additional information.

Niebaum said the Live Eat Play website has something for everyone.

“It offers more than just tips on nutrition and healthy eating, but really embraces the idea of also playing and having a healthy lifestyle,” Niebaum said. “The site can really benefit anyone.”

Wdowik said she is passionate about the website because it is an easy tool for people to use to become healthier.

“I really want people to have good information to make good decisions in their life,” Wdowik said. “I feel like there are so many small things you can do to be healthy.”

Collegian City Beat Reporter Sady Swanson can be reached at news@collegian.com or on Twitter at @sadyswan.