diet health scale

The essence of the Diet Health Scale is a standardized quantitative assessment system that has been tested for reliability and validity. Its core value is to transform the vague subjective feeling of "eating healthy or not" into a trackable and implementable reference indicator. It is a tool to assist in adjusting the diet, rather than a "judgment ruler" to determine whether the diet is right or wrong.

A while ago, I met a girl who works in Internet operations. She took a "healthy eating test" saved on a social platform and asked her if her score was only 30 points. If she was about to get diabetes. I took it over and took a quick look. The rules clearly stated "20 points will be deducted for drinking milk tea more than twice a week" and "30 points will be deducted for skipping breakfast." It was purely an eye-catching gimmick and had nothing to do with a serious diet and health scale.

The formal scales commonly used in academic circles actually have different emphasis, and no one is the absolute "standard answer". For example, the most classic Healthy Eating Index (HEI) is led by the United States Department of Agriculture. It is completely aligned with the intake standards of the Dietary Guidelines. It counts how many grams of whole grains, how many grams of dark green vegetables, and the proportion of saturated fat in total energy you eat every day. It is very accurate and suitable for scientific research or clinical nutrition assessment. There are also schools that are more practical and feel that it is unrealistic for ordinary people to count grams every time, so they have launched a simplified version of the self-assessment scale, such as the Mediterranean Diet Adherence Scale (MEDAS). There are only 14 questions in total. You don’t need to remember the weight. You only need to answer questions such as "How many times do you eat nuts a week?"

Speaking of which, I encountered an interesting controversy a few years ago when I was conducting research on the dietary status of college students: At that time, there was a boy who was lactose intolerant. According to the HEI standards, he had to drink 300ml of milk a day to get full points for this item. However, he had diarrhea as soon as he drank milk, and it was not worth the loss if he drank milk. This is also a point that the academic community has been arguing about now - one group believes that the scale must remain standardized, otherwise the assessment results of different groups of people cannot be compared horizontally. ； The other group believes that if the scale is to be made accessible to ordinary people, it must be personalized and adapted. First, ask whether there are food allergies or underlying diseases, and then adjust the scoring rules. In the past two years, many domestic teams have been working on an adapted version suitable for Chinese people. For example, the points for drinking milk will be divided into three options: fresh milk, sugar-free yogurt, and cheese. People with lactose intolerance can also get points for the latter two, which is much more humane than before.

Many people ask me, in order to eat healthier, do ordinary people need to go out of their way to find formal measurements? In fact, it completely depends on your needs. If you have basic diseases such as high blood pressure or diabetes, go directly to the nutrition department of the hospital. The doctor will use the corresponding specialist scale to evaluate you, which is much more reliable than searching for information on your own. ； If you just want to adjust your diet, just find the officially released simplified version of the self-evaluation. There is really no need to worry about the difference of one or two points. What I often recommend to my friends is the simplified version of the 10 questions from the Chinese Nutrition Society. If you can answer seven or eight questions, you are already eating healthier than 90% of people. Occasionally, if you are craving for hot pot and drink a cup of milk tea, it will not affect the overall evaluation results at all.

In fact, the scale is like the scale you put at home. It can only give you a reference trend. It does not mean that you are unhealthy if you are two or two pounds heavier today, nor does it mean that if you get a perfect score on the scale, you will never get chronic diseases. A few days ago, a fan sent me a message, saying that he always thought his diet was quite healthy. After taking a simplified scale, he discovered that he almost never eats whole grains, so he replaced his white porridge every morning with oatmeal, and his afternoon milk tea with sugar-free lemonade. After only changing two small habits, my blood fat dropped by less than half a bar during the physical examination last month. You see, the scale is supposed to be a tool to help you feel better, not a shackle to keep you from eating, right?