Article: Colds tend to come on gradually. You will start sniffling for a few days and then symptoms will become more severe. The flu, however, can rapidly cause a fever. You may go to bed feeling fine and wake up very sick. Have you noticed any changes in appetite? With a cold, you will still want food. Your eating habits will only change slightly, if at all. With the flu, however, you may notice you're uninterested in food altogether. You may have no desire to eat while symptoms persist. Both the cold and the flu are contagious diseases. Think about any sick people you've been exposed to and whether they had a cold or the flu.  Cold symptoms are most contagious during the earliest stages of infection, when the disease is less severe. If you were recently around someone who was experiencing mild sniffling or sneezing, you may have a cold. Flu symptoms typically appear two or three days after you were exposed to the virus, but it can take anywhere from one to seven days.

What is a summary?
Consider how fast symptoms started. Look at your eating habits. Think about risk factors.