What is the Healthy Eating Index? What do the results for children indicate? Please provide examples to justify to your conclusions

Answer 1

The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) is a summary measure of the quality of one's diet. The HEI provides an overall picture of how well one's diet conforms to the nutrition recommendations contained in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The index factors in such dietary practices as consumption of calories from solid fats and added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium, and the variety of foods in the diet. The results indicate that most children and adolescents aged 2 to 17 have less than optimal diets. Children who live in poor families, compared to those who do not live in poverty, are more likely to have a diet rated as poor or needing improvement. Dietary quality continues to decline from childhood to adolescence, especially with the decreased consumption of fruits and the increased intake of sodium and empty calories from solid fats and added sugars. Children aged 7 to 9 have a lower-quality diet than younger children, and the lower quality is associated with a decline in their fruit and sodium HEI scores—perhaps because as children get older, they consume more fast food and salty snacks.