Free tool
The Bristol stool chart, all 7 types
The scale rates consistency from 1 to 7, and consistency is a proxy for time. Hard lumps spent days in your colon; liquid spent hours. Types 3 and 4 are the normal range. 1 reading tells you almost nothing, and 14 in a row tells you a great deal.
- 1
Separate hard lumps, like nuts
Transit: Slow
Several days in the colon. Water has been fully reabsorbed and passing it is usually difficult.
- 2
Sausage-shaped and lumpy
Transit: Slow
Still slow transit. The lumps have compacted together but have not smoothed out.
- 3
Sausage-shaped with cracks on the surface
Transit: Normal
Within the normal range. The cracks mean it is at the firm end of normal.
- 4
Smooth and soft, like a sausage
Transit: Normal
The usual target. It passes without straining and without urgency.
- 5
Soft blobs with clear-cut edges
Transit: Slightly fast
It left before it fully formed. Often follows a low-fibre day, and often comes with urgency.
- 6
Mushy, with ragged edges
Transit: Fast
Transit was fast enough that water was not reabsorbed. Frequently linked to a fermentable food the day before.
- 7
Liquid, with no solid pieces
Transit: Very fast
Usually called diarrhoea. If it lasts more than 2 days, or comes with fever or blood, see a doctor.
How to use it
Record the number and the time, not a description.
A number can be compared across days and a description cannot. Log the type, the time and whether there was urgency. After 2 weeks you can line those numbers up against what you ate 4 to 8 hours earlier, which is where fermentation patterns appear.
Bring the same numbers to a doctor or dietitian. It is the scale they already use, so it turns a vague account into an intake record.
See a doctor, not a diary
Some findings are not a food pattern and should be assessed now.
- Blood in your stool, or black tarry stool.
- Unexplained weight loss.
- Waking at night to pass stool.
- Type 7 for more than 2 days, or with a fever.
- A new change in habit after 50, or a family history of bowel cancer.
Also asked
- What is the Bristol stool chart?
- It is a 7-point scale that classifies stool by consistency, developed at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Consistency is used as a proxy for how long the stool spent in the colon.
- Is this the same thing as a poop chart?
- Yes. The Bristol stool chart is the clinical version of what people search for as a poop chart, and it is the scale a doctor or dietitian will recognise.
- Which Bristol type is healthy?
- Types 3 and 4 are considered normal, and type 4 is the usual target. A single reading outside that range means little; a repeated pattern is what matters.
- How often should I record my Bristol type?
- Once for every bowel movement, with the time. Recording the number rather than a description is what lets you compare 14 days against each other.
Source: the Bristol stool form scale, Heaton and Lewis, University of Bristol, 1997. Drawn here as line art rather than reproduced.