It’s no secret that many American adults eat unhealthy diets. According to the Food and Drug Administration, one million Americans die each year from diet-related illnesses. But a new study takes a closer look at how the quality of our nation’s diet has changed over the past two decades, as well as how and why diet quality varies across communities.
This study Annals of Internal Medicinelooked at data from 10 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999 to 2020. In the survey, participants (51,703 people) reported all foods and beverages they ate and drank within a 24-hour period.
The research team, based at the Food Is Drug Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, measured diet quality using the American Heart Association Diet Score. They found that over the 20-year period, the number of adults with poor diet quality declined (from 48.8% to 36.7%). However, the number of adults with average diet quality increased from 50.6% to 61.1%. Very few adults had ideal diets.
The researchers found that the improved diet could be attributed to certain factors, such as increased intake of nuts, seeds, whole grains, poultry, cheese and eggs. The better diet also included lower intake of refined grains and sugar-sweetened beverages, as well as reduced intake of fruit juice and milk.
Overall, the researchers concluded that diet quality improved slightly among U.S. adults during this time period; however, these changes were not consistent across groups. Diet quality was better among younger adults, women, Hispanic adults, and those with higher education levels, income, food security, and access to private health insurance. This indicates that dietary disparities remain large and may worsen in marginalized communities.
“It’s encouraging to see some improvements, particularly reduced consumption of added sugars and fruit drinks, but there is still a long way to go, especially for people from marginalized communities and backgrounds,” Junxiu Liu, a postdoctoral researcher at the Friedman School at the time of the study and now an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a press release.
