Diet Risk Score Calculator
Wondering how healthy your diet is? Are you looking for a quick way to verify it? Fortunately, you've found the diet risk score calculator! π₯¦
Our tool quickly computes the mortality risk connected to your food habits and gives the result as the points you scored in each of the 9 categories. The final score correlates with your risk of suffering from the following diseases:
- Type 2 diabetes;
- Stroke; and
- Cardiovascular diseases (including heart attack).
Other habits can also increase your risk, so if you are concerned, speak with your doctor about your overall risk.
How to use the diet risk score calculator?
Our diet risk tool requires exactly 9 answers to food-related questions. Let's quickly enumerate all of them.
How often do you eat...
- Frozen dinners, take-out meals, sit-in meals, fast food, and pizza.
- Bread, sandwiches, rolls.
- Chips, popcorn, pretzels, crackers, and other salty snacks.
- Hot dogs, sausage, deli, or cured meats.
- Soda, flavored coffee, milk, tea drinks, and juices.
- Peanuts, walnuts, seeds, other nuts, and nut butter.
- Fish, shellfish.
- Vegetables.
- Fruits.
How about digging into the topic of your own health? π€
- Read about the Framingham study with our Framingham risk calculator;
- Calculate your HEART score;
- Divide your calorie intake into three meals with our meal calorie calculator; and
- Get to know your body mass index with the BMI calculator.
How can I improve my diet?
You may simply improve your diet by following a few simple steps.
- Cook your own food! This will help you adjust the level of salt to what you really need.
- Choose unsweetened drinks β if you fancy something sweet, add the sugar yourself. It is unlikely that you could make it as sweet as the food producers do.
- Choose healthy products, no matter if they're fresh, frozen, or canned. Look out for the sodium content!
- If it's difficult for you to cut out between-meals snacks, just try to swap them for healthier options that do not contain as much salt.
How can I eat less salt?
Here's how you can easily cut down on sodium consumption:
- Don't buy takeaway meals β cook them yourself at home! Producers usually add much more salt than is really needed.
- Eat bread only once a day β bread is a big contributor to the salt in the typical American diet.
- Replace all salty snacks with fruits & nuts.
- Reduce your processed meat consumption, especially deli or cured meat β replace it with chicken, turkey, nut spreads, cheese, or hummus.
How often should I eat bread?
Aim to limit your intake of bread to 1-2 servings per day. This is due to the high sodium content in this kind of product. π
If you want to eat baked goods more often, consider these ideas:
- Try to make your own bread; or
- Look for low-sodium options.
How often should I eat fruits and vegetables?
Both fruits and vegetables should be eaten at least twice per day, which gives us at least 4 servings of these during a 24-hour period!
π‘ 1 serving = 1 cup (this does not include starchy vegetables like potatoes, peas, and corn.)
Try to avoid juices and smoothies, as they may be low in fiber and high in sugar.
Are frozen and canned fish healthy?
Yes, they are! You should eat fatty fish at least 2 times per week. Although fresh and frozen are great options, canned fish can also help you meet this goal. π
Although, there's a catch. Canned fish should always be checked for their sodium content β always choose low-sodium products!
How can I calculate my diet risk score?
It's pretty effortless! Answer the 9 questions related to your food habits and count all the points according to the table below.
How often do you consume these foods?
Food | Daily | 2-3x/week | 1x/week | Never |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Fast food | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Bread | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Salty snacks | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Salty meats | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
Sweet drinks | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
Nuts | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
Fish | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Vegetables | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
Fruit | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 |