Of more than 9,700 people in a recent study, about 85% were wrong when asked to rate the quality of their diet, and almost all overestimated how healthy it was. Photo by Free-Photos/Pixabay
Many people think they are making healthy food choices, but they may be viewing their diet through rose-colored glasses.
That’s the main finding of a new study that aimed to identify disconnects between how healthily Americans think they eat and how they actually eat.
“It seems difficult for adults in the United States to accurately assess the quality of their diet, and most adults believe that the quality of their diet is healthier than it actually is,” said study author Jessica Thomson. . She is a research epidemiologist at the US Department of Agriculture in Stoneville, Miss.
For the study, researchers asked participants to rate their diet as excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor. People also filled out 24-hour food questionnaires. The researchers then compared the responses to see how well the responses to the two exercises matched.
In short: they didn’t.
Of more than 9,700 people, approximately 85% were wrong when asked to rate the quality of your dietand almost everyone overestimated how healthy it was.
“They perceived their diet as very good when it was actually bad,” Thomson said.
Those who rated their diet as poor tended to be much more accurate, the study showed. Her rating matched the researchers’ rating more than nine times out of 10.
In the other four rating categories, between 1% and 18% of participants accurately rated the quality of their diet.
More research is needed to find out how to close this gap.
“First we need to understand what factors people consider when they think about the healthiness of their diet,” Thomson said.
His team wanted to find out if a simple question could be used as a screening tool for nutrition studies. Previous studies have found that self-reported assessments can be a strong predictor of health and risk of premature death.
The findings, which fit with previous studies, were presented Tuesday at an online meeting of the American Society for Nutrition. Research presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The gap uncovered in this study is between knowledge and action, said Shelley Maniscalco, a dietitian from Washington, DC, who reviewed the findings.
“People largely know that they need to eat more fruits and vegetables, that whole grains are good for them, and that they should eat less fat and fried foods,” he said.
The key is making it easier for people to eat nutritious food that tastes good by teaching them how to cook and providing easy-to-follow recipes, Maniscalco said.
And then people need to remember: change doesn’t happen overnight.
“People get overwhelmed when they try to make big changes all at once,” he said. “A good starting point is to avoid saying ‘I’m on a diet’ or ‘I’m going on a diet.'”
Why? That’s because it implies that a diet is temporary.
“You’re ready to quit at any moment,” Maniscalco said. “Change your mindset and instead say, ‘I’m taking these small steps to improve my diet in a way that will benefit my health.'”
More information
The US Department of Agriculture has more information on healthy nutrition.
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