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ARS Home » Plains Area » Houston, Texas » Children's Nutrition Research Center » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #406329
Research Project: Microbiota and Nutritional Health

Location: Children's Nutrition Research Center

Title: Global dietary quality in 185 countries from 1990 to 2018 show wide differences by nation, age, education, and urbanicity

Author
item MILLER, VICTORIA - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item WEBB, PATRICK - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item CUDHEA, FREDERICK - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item SHI, PEILIN - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item ZHANG, JIANYI - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item REEDY, JULIA - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item ERNDT-MARINO, JOSH - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item COATES, JENNIFER - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item MOZAFFARIAN, DARIUSH - Friedman School Of Nutrition
item DATABASE, GLOBAL DIETARY - Brigham & Women'S Hospital
item MANARY, MARK - Washington University

Submitted to: Nature Food
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/15/2022
Publication Date: 9/19/2022
Citation: Miller, V., Webb, P., Cudhea, F., Shi, P., Zhang, J., Reedy, J., Erndt-Marino, J., Coates, J., Mozaffarian, D., Global Dietary Database. 2022. Global dietary quality in 185 countries from 1990 to 2018 show wide differences by nation, age, education, and urbanicity. Nature Food. 3:694–702. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00594-9.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00594-9

Interpretive Summary: Data on global dietary patterns is limited, particularly in children and adolescents, which therefore weakens targets and approaches to promote healthy and sustainable diets. In this study, the researchers aimed to assess the global dietary patterns of children and adults across 185 countries from 1990 to 2018, taking into account various factors such as age, education, and urbanicity. The results showed that overall dietary quality is modest worldwide, with regional differences, and although there was a small improvement in diet quality globally over the studied period, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa showed no improvement, highlighting the need for pointed interventions in these regions.

Technical Abstract: Evidence on what people eat globally is limited in scope and rigour, especially as it relates to children and adolescents. This impairs target setting and investment in evidence-based actions to support healthy sustainable diets. Here we quantified global, regional and national dietary patterns among children and adults, by age group, sex, education and urbanicity, across 185 countries between 1990 and 2018, on the basis of data from the Global Dietary Database project. Our primary measure was the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, a validated score of diet quality; Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and Mediterranean Diet Score patterns were secondarily assessed. Dietary quality is generally modest worldwide. In 2018, the mean global Alternative Healthy Eating Index score was 40.3, ranging from 0 (least healthy) to 100 (most healthy), with regional means ranging from 30.3 in Latin America and the Caribbean to 45.7 in South Asia. Scores among children versus adults were generally similar across regions, except in Central/Eastern Europe and Central Asia, high-income countries, and the Middle East and Northern Africa, where children had lower diet quality. Globally, diet quality scores were higher among women versus men, and more versus less educated individuals. Diet quality increased modestly between 1990 and 2018 globally and in all world regions except in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where it did not improve.