Project: Dietary Patterns and Nutritional Adequacy: Does Variety Matter?
Award Year: 2001
Amount of award, fiscal 2001: $200,000.00
Institution: Cancer Research Center of Hawaii
Principal Investigator: Suzanne Murphy
Status: Completed
Detailed Objective: The study's objective is to determine if a measure of dietary variety increases the ability of currently used diet quality indexes to predict nutrient adequacy and body mass index (BMI). Dietary variety is promoted by the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans and thus is a component of both nutrition education and evaluation efforts of many federal food assistance programs. However, recent research has cast doubt on the efficacy of dietary variety in ensuring nutrition adequacy, and raised concerns about a possible role of variety in promoting obesity. The study will use national survey data from the 1994-96, 98 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII) to determine nutrient adequacy based on the recently-released Dietary Reference Intakes. The Food Commodity Intake Database and the Pyramid Servings Database developed from the CSFII will be used to develop variables representing dietary patterns, including dietary variety. The study will develop food-based measures of dietary patterns using the Food Guide Pyramid. New measures of dietary variety will be developed for analysis along with the existing variety components of the Healthy Eating Index and the Diet Quality Index, Revised. The results of this study will provide a clearer definition of a healthy dietary pattern and thus can improve both the design and evaluation of nutrition intervention programs and food assistance programs.
Topic: Dietary Intake and Quality
Dataset: Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII)
Output:
Foote, J., S. Murphy, L. Wilkens, P. Basiotis, and A. Carlson. "Dietary Variety Increases the Probability of Nutrient Adequacy Among Adults," The Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 134, Issue 7, July 2004.
Murphy, S., J. Foote, L. Wilkens, P. Basiotis, A. Carlson, K. White, and K. Yonemori. "Simple Measures of Dietary Variety Are Associated with Improved Dietary Quality," Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 106, No. 3, March 2006.