Diet quality of Americans in 1994–1996 and 2001–2002 as measured by the Healthy Eating Index‐2005

Abstract

The HEI-2005 has 12 components: Total Fruit; Whole Fruit (forms other than juice); Total Vegetables; Dark Green and Orange Vegetables and Legumes (dry peas and beans)*; Total Grains; Whole Grains; Milk (all milk products and soy beverages); Meat and Beans* (meat, poultry, fish, eggs, soybean products other than beverages, nuts, and seeds); Oils (nonhydrogenated vegetable oils and oils in fish, nuts, and seeds); Saturated Fat; Sodium; and Calories from Solid Fats, Alcoholic beverages, and Added Sugars (SoFAAS) (Guenther et al., 2006). For most components, higher intakes result in higher scores. Note, however, that for three components, Saturated Fat, Sodium, and Calories from SoFAAS, lower intake levels result in higher scores because lower intakes are more desirable. The HEI-2005 assesses dietary intakes on a per calorie basis rather than on the basis of absolute amounts of foods consumed; thus, the HEI-2005 assesses the quality of the relative proportions of foods consumed rather than the quantity of foods consumed. Details on the standards for scoring diets and on the rationale, development, evaluation, and history of the HEI-2005 have been reported (Guenther, Reedy, Krebs-Smith, Reeve, & Basiotis, 2007).This Nutrition Insight provides HEI-2005 scores for the total U.S. population estimated from national surveys conducted in 1994-96 and in 2001-02. These estimates, therefore, can serve as baseline data that reflect the quality of the American diet prior to the implementation of the 2005 Dietary Guidelines. The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) will continue to estimate these scores in the future. MethodsThe HEI-2005 scores were estimated using 1 day of dietary intake data provided by 15,011 participants in the USDA

Development of the Vietnamese Healthy Eating Index

“…For this purpose, a dietary quality index is needed to assess adherence to the FBDGs (4)(5)(6) . This type of index has been developed in many countries based on their current national FBDGs (6)(7)(8) and has been used for various purposes, such as measuring the dietary quality of populations at one point in time or over a period of time (9) ; assessing changes in dietary patterns in a nutritional intervention (10) ; examining the associations between diets and diseases (11) as well as the risk of mortality (8) ; and combining environmental and other factors to assess the sustainability of foods and diets (12) .…”

Results from the Strong Families Start at Home/Familias Fuertes Comienzan en Casa: feasibility randomised control trial to improve the diet quality of low-income, predominantly Hispanic/Latinx children

“…Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI) total and component scores, were derived using the National Cancer Institute simple HEI scoring algorithm method. Total HEI score ranges from 0-100 with higher scores reflecting higher diet quality, and a score of 80 or higher reflecting a high-quality diet among preschool-aged children (20) . Scoring reflects intake per 1,000 calories, except for saturated fats and added sugars which are a percentage of energy.…”

Development and application of novel indicators to measure diet quality and affordability of healthy diets in Vietnam

“…Various methods and indicators have been developed and applied to perform the cost of a healthy diet measurement. The oldest method was created by Stigler in 1945 and used linear programming to select a diet from a list of foods that minimizes the cost of meeting a set of nutrients (72) . Following a similar concept, the Cost of Nutrient Adequacy (CoNA) indicator was recently developed by Masters et al in 2018 to measure the least-cost diets based on nutrient requirements (73) .…”

“…All VHEI components were calculated using discrete recommended servings instead of a density approach (based on energy intake). This density approach has been adopted differently in the literature since some indices apply it, such as the HEI-2005 (72) and HEI-2010 (73) , Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top score (64) , but some do not, e.g., Canadian Healthy Eating Index (HEIC-2009) (66) , or do so for only certain components, such as the Dutch Healthy Diet index (DHD-index) (47) . Using a density approach for all components may be problematic because of the difficulties in obtaining a precise energy intake level.…”