Research
Macro partitioning
Despite overall improvements, the absolute dietary quality of the US population remains poor, with many components (vegetables, whole grains, nuts) scoring below 4.0/10.
Even though dietary quality has improved, most Americans still consume far less than the recommended amounts of vegetables, whole grains, and nuts. Focus on incrementally increasing these specific food groups, as they remain the weakest links in the current US diet.
GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
Despite the increase in score, the AHEI-2010 scores for the vegetables, fruit, whole grains, nuts and legumes, long-chain (ω-3) fats, and alcohol components were relatively low (<4.0) across all survey periods.
Why this rating
Clear data from a large national survey.
Source
Trends in Dietary Quality Among Adults in the United States, 1999 Through 2010
Dong D. Wang et al. · JAMA Internal Medicine · 2014
DOI 10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.3422
cross_sectional · n=29124Cited 485×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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- Reduction in industrially produced trans fat intake was the primary driver of improved dietary quality in the US adult population between 1999 and 2010, accounting for more than half of the total improvement.Good
- Socioeconomic status (SES) is positively associated with dietary quality, and the gap in dietary quality between high-SES and low-SES groups widened significantly between 1999 and 2010.Good
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