Diet quality remains poor among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations

Diet quality remains poor among socioeconomically disadvantaged populations   

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M24-0190  

URL goes live when the embargo lifts 

A study of U.S. dietary trends found that diet quality among U.S. adults improved modestly between 1999 and 2020, but the proportion of socioeconomically disadvantaged people with poor diet quality remained high, and dietary disparities persisted or worsened. The report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.   

Researchers from the Department of Population Science and Policy at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University studied data from 51,703 adults responding to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to evaluate trends in diet quality by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic disadvantage. Participants’ diet quality was assessed using the American Heart Association (AHA) 2020 continuous diet score, which is measured based on a higher intake of healthy, unprocessed foods, and a lower intake of sugar, sodium, and processed foods. They also looked at energy-adjusted consumption of the diet components and other individual food groups and nutrients. Poor diet was defined as less than 40% adherence to the AHA score, intermediate as 40% to 79.9% adherence, and ideal as at least 80% adherence. The researchers found that from 1999 to 2020, the proportion of U.S. adults with poor diet quality decreased by more than 11%, the proportion with intermediate quality increased by more than 10%, and the proportion with ideal quality increased slightly. However, worsening disparities in diet quality remained among those in disadvantaged socioeconomic groups. The proportion of adults with poor diet quality decreased from 47.9% to 33.0% among those with food security but did not change among those experiencing food insecurity.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at [email protected]. To speak to the corresponding author, please contact Taraneh Pettinato at [email protected].