New Delhi: In a first ever study to evaluate diet quality, it has been revealed that India has hardly seen any improvement in the diet quality over the last two decades. The country is ranked 70th of 187 countries in terms of overall diet pattern.
“The dietary patterns are improving in several areas of the world during the past 20 years, with the possible major exceptions of China, India, and several sub-Saharan countries,” said the experts.
The study said, however, the consumption of healthy foods like fruits and vegetables has improved significantly in most parts of the word. China and several sub-Saharan nations are other regions where dietary patterns are not improved, said the experts.
The study was done in 187 countries and covered almost 4.5 billion adults. Published in The Lancet Global Health journal, the report says that the consumption of healthy food is much less than the unhealthy foods like processed meat and sweetened drinks in most of the countries.
The report states, “Improvements in diet quality between 1990 and 2010 have been greatest in high-income nations, with modest reductions in the consumption of unhealthy foods and increased intake of healthy products. However, people living in many of the wealthiest regions (e.g., the USA and Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand) still have among the poorest quality diets in the world, because they have some of the highest consumption of unhealthy food worldwide.”
For the score based on fewer unhealthy items, India ranks on 23rd. for the score based on more healthy items, it is ranked very low on 149th.
Some Sub-Saharan African countries and Asian countries are also low on diet quality rankings.
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