American Diets Are Improving, Study Finds

Americans have improved their diets by eating more nuts, seeds, whole grains and whole fruit, and fewer sugary beverages on average since 1999, according to a new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Overall, the study found a marked decrease in the number of people eating a "poor diet," as defined by the American Heart Association, which dropped from 55.9 percent of the population to 45.6 percent. The percentage of people with "ideal" diets, though still quite low, rose from 0.7 percent to 1.5 percent.

However, the researchers found there were significant disparities by race and income level. Black and Mexican American adults did not experience the same improvements in their diets as white adults, and evidence suggested that the diets of people with low incomes may have worsened.

And the researchers did not see significant changes on other dietary factors that are important for health, including total intake of fruits and vegetables, processed meat, saturated fat, or sodium. (Whole fruit consumption increased while people drank less fruit juice on average.)

The authors, a team led by Dariush Mozaffarian, of the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, made these findings by analyzing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which asked respondents to recall what they had eaten in the last 24 hours between the years of 1999 and 2012.

Probably the biggest caveat to this research finding, then, is that it's possible that the population's diet didn't improve during this time, but people just became more likely to respond to surveys by telling nutrition researchers what they wanted to hear.

But assuming the self-reports are relatively accurate, these findings could could bode well for future improvements in public health. As the study's press release notes, poor diet is a major driver of many of the most harmful diseases, including cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. Experts believe poor diet could be responsible for as many as 650,000 deaths in the United States every year.

Knowing that the average American diet is improving, while certain groups are not seeing similar gains, is valuable information for nutrition researchers and public health experts.

"These findings may inform discussions on emerging successes, areas for greater attention, and corresponding opportunities to improve the diets of individuals living in the United States," the study authors wrote in the paper.

This study supports conclusions from other work in recent years which found both an improving diet overall along with significant disparities between subgroups in the United States. In 2014, researchers from Harvard had found similar results when examining the period between 1999 and 2010.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Margo Denke, who previously worked at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, urged that these findings should inspire more work to improve the public's dietary habits.

"Even though there has been some improvement from 1999 to 2012, clinicians, patients, and the food industry all need to work together to meet the challenge of improving the healthiness of the U.S. diet," she wrote.

Photo Credit: Martin Cathrae via Flickr