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Five-a-day or five takeaways a week? Rate your diet here

See how you compare to other readers in The Health Check with Irish Life Health.

WHETHER YOUR SUNDAY night is religiously spent doing meal prep for the week or reaching for your Deliveroo app (or if you’re an angel, cooking a roast for your loved ones), our diet can vary a lot depending on age and lifestyle.

And though we have more access to information about nutrition than any generation before us, we’re also set to be one of the most obese. To tackle this, we’ve seen things like the introduction of the sugar tax and the recommended increase of our five-a-day.

But how do we really feel about it all? And how can we be proactive about improving the food that we eat? Last week, we launched The Health Check with Irish Life Health to find out how we really feel about our fitness and this week we’re moving onto food, glorious food…

So, what tends to go on with your diet? Do you adhere to the new 10-a-day thinking? Maybe you think the sugar tax is a bit of a farce? Do you buy into the idea of breakfast?

Tell us by giving us your rating on the questions below…

BE HONEST...

 

1. How satisfied are you with your current diet (10 being completely satisfied)?

6

 

SCALING BACK

How do you rate the relative importance of diet and exercise for health? Put them on a scale of importance from diet (1) to exercise (10), with 5 being equally important.

6

 

BALANCING ACT

How important is it to you that you try to follow a balanced diet (10 being very important)?

6

Gone are the days of your five-a-day – nutritionists now think we should be aiming for ten portions of fruit and vegetables daily. Elsewhere, nutritionists aren’t convinced that vegetarian diets reduce heart attacks and there are still a lot of misconceptions about diets and their likelihood to work for people. So, what do you think about it all?

YOUR TEN-A-DAY

Nutritionists now recommend 10 pieces of fruit and vegetables a day. How achievable do you feel this is within your own lifestyle (10 being very achievable)?

6

 

LITTLE BITES

In Italy, parents now face a proposal to be punished if they don’t provide balanced diets for their kids. How strongly do you agree that Ireland should follow suit (10 being very strongly)?

6

GOING GREEN

 

A recent study found that buying organic can really benefit the environment. How strongly do you consider the environment when you’re buying groceries (10 being very strongly)?

6

Unfortunately, we’re in the middle of a global obesity epidemic and Ireland is not immune – on average we’ve gained a pound every year for the last 20 years. So where do you stand on measures to address this such as the sugar tax? Is stress a factor when you tend to eat less nutritious food? Let us know by rating below.

SWEET ENOUGH

May 2018 saw the introduction of a sugar tax in Ireland, how likely would you be to now check the sugar content in foods you eat (10 being very likely)?

6

NEXT-GENERATION

One in every 10 children in Ireland is now obese. How much do you worry about this for your children, or future generations (10 meaning you are very worried)?

6

UNDER PRESSURE

 

Does stress affect your diet? When you’re feeling stressed, how likely is it that what you eat or the quantity you eat changes (10 being very likely)?

6

MORNING MEALS

 

Experts say that people who skip breakfast are more likely to be overweight than those who don’t. How often do you tend to eat breakfast (10 being 100% of the time)?

6

Read more: Smashing your PB or just catching your breath? Rate your fitness here

Over the next few months as part of The Health Check, we’ll be capturing a snapshot of our health as a nation with Irish Life Health. We’ll be compiling anonymous, real-time ratings and talking to experts about the results and what they mean for our health. We know Irish Life. We are Irish Life Health.

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