The good news? American diets have improved over the past two decades. However, the bad news is that food insecurity issues have remained consistent during this time.
According to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers from Tufts University analyzed American diet quality from 1999 to 2020. They found that the percentage of adults with poor dietary quality decreased from 48.8% to 37.4% during this period. Despite this improvement, disparities in diet quality persist, hindering progress towards achieving health equity.
“While there have been some improvements in American diets over the last two decades, these improvements are not reaching everyone, and many Americans continue to eat poorly,” cardiologist and senior author of the study, Dariush Mozaffarian, stated. “Our research shows that addressing access to nutritious food is crucial in achieving nutritional and health equity.”
The study included data from 51,703 participants who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2020. Their dietary intake was compared to the American Heart Association’s diet score, which assesses the quality of diet based on consumption of healthy and unhealthy foods.
In addition to a decrease in the proportion of adults with poor diets, the study found an increase in those with intermediate and ideal diets, although the percentage of individuals with an ideal diet remained low.
Specific trends identified in the study included changes in the consumption of various food categories, with some improving and others remaining stable. However, these improvements were not uniform across all demographic groups, with disparities observed based on age, gender, race, income, education, and food security status.
Mozaffarian emphasized the need to address nutrition security and other social determinants of health to combat rising rates of obesity and chronic diseases in the United States.
More than 1 million Americans die from diet-related diseases each year, with minority groups facing disproportionate risks. The impact of poor diet and food insecurity on healthcare spending and productivity was also highlighted in another study conducted at Tufts University.
