🍽️ Diet Risk Score Calculator
Assess your dietary habits and their impact on health by answering 9 food-frequency questions. A higher score indicates a diet associated with higher mortality risk.
📊 Diet Risk Score Results
What Is the Diet Risk Score?
The Diet Risk Score is a simple, validated assessment tool that evaluates your dietary habits using 9 food-frequency questions. It was developed to estimate the mortality risk associated with typical eating patterns.
The score focuses on two main dietary factors that affect health:
- Sodium intake — high sodium consumption from processed foods, fast food, and salty snacks is linked to hypertension and cardiovascular disease
- Protective food intake — regular consumption of nuts, fish, vegetables, and fruits provides essential nutrients and reduces disease risk
A lower score indicates a healthier diet, while a higher score suggests dietary patterns associated with increased health risks.
How to Use the Diet Risk Score Calculator
Our diet risk tool requires exactly 9 answers to food-related questions. Simply indicate how often you eat each food group:
- Fast food — frozen dinners, take-out meals, sit-in meals, fast food, and pizza
- Bread — bread, sandwiches, rolls
- Salty snacks — chips, popcorn, pretzels, crackers
- Salty meats — hot dogs, sausage, deli, or cured meats
- Sweet drinks — soda, flavored coffee, sweetened milk/tea drinks, juices
- Nuts — peanuts, walnuts, seeds, other nuts, and nut butter
- Fish — fish, shellfish
- Vegetables — all vegetables (excluding starchy ones)
- Fruits — all fruits
Scoring System
The scoring varies by food type. Unhealthy foods score higher with more frequent consumption, while healthy foods score higher when consumed less often:
| Food | Daily | 2-3×/week | 1×/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 |
How Can I Improve My Diet?
You can improve your diet by following these simple steps:
- Cook your own food! This will help you adjust the level of salt to what you really need.
- Choose unsweetened drinks — if you fancy something sweet, add the sugar yourself. It's unlikely that you could make it as sweet as food producers do.
- Choose healthy products, whether they're fresh, frozen, or canned. Always look out for sodium content!
- Swap snacks for healthier options — try to replace salty snacks with fruits, nuts, or vegetables.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I eat less salt?
Here's how to cut down on sodium consumption:
- Don't buy takeaway meals — cook them yourself at home! Producers usually add much more salt than is really needed.
- Eat bread only once a day — bread is a big contributor to salt in the typical American diet.
- Replace all salty snacks with fruits and nuts.
- Reduce your processed meat consumption, especially deli or cured meat — 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. 🍞
If you want to eat baked goods more often, 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 during a 24-hour period!
💡 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. 🐠
However, canned fish should always be checked for sodium content — always choose low-sodium products!
How can I calculate my diet risk score?
Answer the 9 questions related to your food habits and count all the points according to the scoring table above. The total score ranges from 0 (excellent diet) to 27 (very high risk diet).