Update of the Healthy Eating Index: HEI-2015

Abstract

The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) is a measure for assessing whether a set of foods aligns with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). An updated HEI is released to correspond to each new edition of the DGA, and this article introduces the latest version, which reflects the 2015-2020 DGA. The HEI-2015 components are the same as in the HEI-2010, except Saturated Fat and Added Sugars replace Empty Calories, with the result being 13 components. The 2015-2020 DGA include explicit recommendations to limit intakes of both Added Sugars and Saturated Fats to <10% of energy. HEI-2015 does not account for excessive energy from alcohol within a separate component, but continues to account for all energy from alcohol within total energy (the denominator for most components). All other components remain the same as for HEI-2010, except for a change in the allocation of legumes. Previous versions of the HEI accounted for legumes in either the two vegetable or the two protein foods components, whereas HEI-2015 counts legumes toward all four components. Weighting approaches are similar to those of previous versions, and scoring standards were maintained, refined, or developed to increase consistency across components; better ensure face validity; follow precedent; cover a range of intakes; and, when applicable, ensure the DGA level corresponds to a score >7 out of 10. HEI-2015 component scores can be examined collectively using radar graphs to reveal a pattern of diet quality and summed to represent overall diet quality.

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

Conflict of interest statement

STATEMENT OF POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Copyright © 2018 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Figures

Figure 1.

Key features of the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) and guiding principles for the updates.

Figure 2.

Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015) components mapped to the key dietary recommendations of the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).

Figure 3.

Food groups, subgroups, and nutrients that contribute to the components of the Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-2015). aIncludes all milk products, such as fluid milk, yogurt, and cheese, and fortified soy beverages. bSaturated fat is counted separately. cIncludes nuts, seeds, and soy products (other than beverages). dIncluded as a ratio of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids to saturated fatty acids.

Figure 4.

Radar graph depicting a perfect score (100 points), and two identical total scores (50 points) with different patterns of quality according to Healthy Eating Index-2015 component score.