Are the Eatwell Guide and Nutrient Profiling Models Consistent in the UK?

Ana-Catarina Pinho-Gomes,Asha Kaur,Peter Scarborough,Mike Rayner

doi:10.3390/nu13082732

Ana-Catarina Pinho-Gomes, Asha Kaur + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13082732

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Abstract

A nutrient profiling model (NPM) was developed in 2005 in the UK to regulate the marketing of foods to children. It was revised in 2018, but the new version has not been finalised. The Eatwell Guide (EWG) is the UK’s official food-based dietary guidelines. The aim of this study was to evaluate the agreement between the 2005 and 2018 versions of the NPM and the EWG. Using recent National Diet and Nutrition Surveys, we estimated the healthiness of individual diets based on an EWG dietary score and a NPM dietary index. We then compared the percentage of agreement and Cohen’s kappa for each combination of the EWG score and NPM index across the range of observed values for the 2005 and 2018 versions. A total of 3028 individual diets were assessed. Individuals with a higher (i.e., healthier) EWG score consumed a diet with, on average, a lower (i.e., healthier) NPM index both for the 2005 and 2018 versions. Overall, there was good agreement between the EWG score and the NPM dietary index at assessing the healthiness of representative diets of the UK population, when a low cut-off for the NPM dietary index was used, irrespective of the version. This suggests that dietary advice to the public is broadly aligned with NPM-based food policies and vice-versa.

Highlights

Nutrient profiling is the “science of classifying or ranking foods according to their nutritional composition for reasons related to preventing disease and promoting health”, and nutrient profiling models are algorithms that classify or rank foods for the purposes of preventing disease and promoting health [1]
We investigated whether there was an association between the Eatwell Guide (EWG) score and the nutrient profiling model (NPM) dietary index by (1) calculating the mean NPM dietary index for each of the levels of the EWG score, (2) plotting the distribution of the NPM values by level of EWG score, and
This study used a score based on the food and nutrient recommendations underpinning the EWG and a dietary index based on the NPM versions of 2005 and 2018 to evaluate the healthiness of representative diets of the UK population

Summary

Introduction

Nutrient profiling is the “science of classifying or ranking foods according to their nutritional composition for reasons related to preventing disease and promoting health”, and nutrient profiling models are algorithms that classify or rank foods for the purposes of preventing disease and promoting health [1]. The model uses a simple scoring system that recognises the benefits of a balanced nutritional diet by awarding negative points to components that children should eat more (i.e., protein, fibre, fruit and vegetables, and nuts), and positive points to foods with components that children should reduce in their diet (i.e., energy, saturated fats, sodium, and sugars). The NPM was reviewed and modified by Public Health England in 2018 This draft was open for public consultation and published, but it was never finalised [3]. This version of the NPM was updated to incorporate new evidence on the association between nutrient intakes and health outcomes, such as systematic reviews linking the consumption of certain food groups with health outcomes [4,5,6,7]. The points attributed to foods according to content in energy, saturated fat, free sugars, and fibre were adjusted

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