The index represents the total of 10 different dietary components such as how a person's diet conforms with the Food Guide Pyramid serving recommendations for grain, vegetable, fruit, milk and meat groups, total fat and saturated fat consumption as a percentage of total food energy intake, cholesterol and sodium intake, and the variety of a person's diet. On a scale of zero to 100, a diet that ranks above 80 points is considered healthy. However, most Americans' diets rank in the low 60s, Nayga said. Even after the enactment of the law, only about 12 percent of Americans are eating what is considered by the USDA to be healthful diets, Nayga said. Four of the top 10 causes of death heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes are associated with poor diets.
Smokers have a lower diet quality than nonsmokers overall.
Major food shoppers are the most likely to use the food labels. African-Americans tend to have a lower diet quality than other races, whether they are label users or not. Residents of the southern United States also tend to have a lower diet quality than the rest of the nation. The diet quality of employed individuals was lower than the diet quality of unemployed individuals. Researchers plan to study USDA data from 1998 and 1999 to determine whether diets continue to improve, he added.