Consensus among experts on healthy eating and diet quality index

Abstract

The article aims to achieve a consensus about Healthy Eating and Diet Quality Index to enable a validation study on the Diet Quality Index. Experts were identified among authors of articles published from 2010 to 2015 that pre-sented the key worlds healthy eating index and diet quality index. The query was carried out by combining the Delphi technique with the Likert method. To determine a consensus, at least three of the following criteria had to be met: minimum score in each statement (≥ 3,00); standard devi-ation (< 1,5); frequency of agreement (≥ 51%) and differences between interquartile ranges (< 1,0). Topics regarding Highly palatable foods, oilseeds, and Meat and eggs did not arrived at a consensus in the first round. Experts proposed new themes: Gluten, Meal frequency, Alcohol con-sumption, and Including nutrients in the diet quality index. Although quality and risk markers in diet are periodically studied, it was only possi-ble to reach consensus on subjects such as fruits, vegetables, milk and dairy products, legumes, and oilseeds as quality markers after theoretical justi-fication. Processed and ready-to-eat foods, highly palatable foods, excessive sweets and fats, and alcohol were readily identified as risk factors.