Abstract
The Dietary Guideline Index (DGI) is a validated diet quality index that reflects adherence to the Australian Dietary Guidelines. The aim of the current study was to establish a novel methodology that applied the DGI to dietary data collected via gold standard, weighed food records (WFR). Consisting of 10 components with a maximal score of 120, the DGI reflected the food-based recommendations of the current Australian Dietary Guidelines and included indicators to score adequacy and quality of core food components and discretionary choices within the diet. The DGI was applied to WFR collected from a sample of 141 adults (84 women, 57 men). Differences between gender for each indicator, as well as subscores for core and noncore components of the DGI were examined. Construct validity was assessed by evaluating the relationship between total DGI score and intake of key nutrients of interest. Overall, the median DGI score was low, 50.87 (range 20.6–104.1). Higher DGI scores were associated with lower intakes of saturated fat, added sugars and sodium (P < 0.05). This methodological approach of applying the DGI to WFR may improve our ability to quantify diet quality, thereby providing a tool to assess changes in dietary intake over time and allow the quantification of diet quality as a variable in relation to health outcomes.
Highlights
Diet is a major determinant of chronic disease risk, impacting morbidity, mortality and quality of life [1]
Dietary patterns that promote health and reduce risk of chronic disease are captured within evidence-based dietary guidelines, with individuals who adhere to dietary guidelines proposed to have higher diet quality [2]
The Dietary Guideline Index (DGI) is a diet quality index initially developed by McNaughton et al [9] to evaluate adherence to the Australian Dietary Guidelines
Summary
Diet is a major determinant of chronic disease risk, impacting morbidity, mortality and quality of life [1]. Assessment of dietary patterns takes into consideration the quantity, proportion, frequency, variety and combinations of beverages and foods consumed [3,4,5,6], and there is increasing consensus among researchers and policy makers that approaches to measure dietary patterns recognise the complexities within whole diets in relation to health outcomes [6]. Over isolated nutrients, allows protective dietary patterns and unfavourable dietary components to be identified [7] and associations with health measures to be made [4,8]. Dietary patterns that promote health and reduce risk of chronic disease are captured within evidence-based dietary guidelines, with individuals who adhere to dietary guidelines proposed to have higher diet quality [2]. The DGI has been revised to reflect updated guidelines [10], adapted for use with 24-hour recall data in children [11] and adults [12,13], and has been validated
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