Americans with poor diet drop from 49% to 37%: study

The proportion of Americans with “poor diet quality” has decreased from about 49% to 37%, according to a new study.

The study, published in Annals of Internal Medicine this week, it found that between 1999 and 2020, “the proportion of US adults with a poor-quality diet decreased from 48.8% to 37.4%.”

“While we have seen some modest improvements in American diets over the past two decades, these improvements are not reaching everyone, and many Americans are eating worse,” Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University and author of the study, said in one Tufts Now articlewhich describes itself on an “about” page like the school’s website “official news source.”

The study looked at 51,703 adults and whether they met “the goals of the validated American Heart Association (AHA) 2020 Continuous Dietary Score (based on higher intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish and shellfish, and nuts, seeds, and legumes). ). and lower intake of sugary drinks, processed meat, saturated fat and sodium). “Poor diet” in the study was defined as “less than 40% adherence to the AHA score”.

“Our new research shows that the nation cannot achieve nutritional and health equity until we address the barriers that many Americans face when it comes to accessing and eating nutritious foods,” said Mozaffarian.

Another recent study found that women who follow a Mediterranean diet, which typically includes foods and ingredients such as olive oil, fruits, fish, nuts and vegetables, live significantly longer.

“In this cohort study of [25,315] women followed for 25 years, greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with a 23% reduction in the risk of all-cause mortality,” according to the study, published earlier this month.

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