Diet Quality through Adolescence and Early Adulthood: Cross-Sectional Associations of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension Diet Index and Component Food Groups with Age.

Late adolescence to early adulthood is the period of life when prevalence of overweight and obesity rises the fastest, and an important time to understand changes in dietary risk factors. In this study we assess the variation in diet quality through analysis of cross-sectional data from 2957 individuals aged 13 to 30 from the National Diet and Nutrition Study (2008⁻2016). Diet data were self-reported using four-day food diaries and coded to give diet quality using the dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH) index (range 0⁻80) and DASH component food groups (grams/day).