Continuity, Considerations, and Future Directions for the Healthy Eating Index-Toddlers-2020

Abstract

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025 includes guidance for infants and toddlers aged birth to 24 months. To assess alignment with this new guidance, the Healthy Eating Index (HEI)-Toddlers-2020 was developed for toddlers 12 through 23 months old. This monograph focuses on the continuity, considerations, and future directions of this new index for toddlers in the context of evolving dietary guidance. There is considerable continuity between the HEI-Toddlers-2020 and previous versions of the HEI. The same process, guiding principles, and features (with caveats) are repeated in the new index. However, there are unique considerations for measurement, analysis, and interpretation for the HEI-Toddlers-2020 that this article addresses, while identifying future directions for the HEI-Toddlers-2020. The continued evolution of dietary guidance for infants, toddlers, and young children will provide additional opportunities for index-based metrics: considering inclusion of multidimensional layers in dietary patterns, defining a healthy eating trajectory, bridging healthy eating across different life stages, and communicating the constructs of balance among dietary constituents.

Keywords: Diet indices; Diet quality; Dietary intake; Dietary patterns; Healthy Eating Index.