Dietary gap assessment: an approach for evaluating whether a country's food supply can support healthy diets at the population level.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

Dietary diversity, and in particular consumption of nutrient-rich foods including fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and animal-source foods, is linked to greater nutrient adequacy. We developed a 'dietary gap assessment' to evaluate the degree to which a nation's food supply could support healthy diets at the population level. Design/Setting In the absence of global food-based dietary guidelines, we selected the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet as an example because there is evidence it prevents diet-related chronic disease and supports adequate micronutrient intakes. We used the DASH guidelines to shape a hypothetical 'healthy' diet for the test country of Cameroon. Food availability was estimated using FAO Food Balance Sheet data on country-level food s

SUBMITTER: Kuyper EM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5582405 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature