Dietary quality

Diet is part of the “behaviour and lifestyle” subdimension. Dietary quality, which is a specific aspect of this subdimension, notably refers to the consumption of particular foods and nutrients and makes it possible to assess the nature and particularities of individuals’ diets as a whole. A balanced diet is one of the main risk factors associated with many problems such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and several types of cancer (Health Canada 2018, Government of Québec 2019).

The committee focuses on assessing dietary quality in general without any particular focus on the various diet-related disorders and pathologies. The committee identified a number of important aspects of dietary quality, which are measured using the selected tools and measures. These include consumption of fruits and vegetables, overall dietary quality, knowledge about food and diet, motivation, and food insecurity.

PULSAR has developed a conceptual framework for exploring and identifying the best ways to measure and evaluate specific aspects of sustainable health. This framework makes it possible to take stock of existing tools and measures and categorize and classify them according to various criteria such as ease of use, complexity, and implementation cost. Once established by consensus by our committees, this system will provide a quick overview of the tools and measures proposed by PULSAR for each dimension of interest. The conceptual framework is re-evaluated annually to allow the committees to make improvements so it can be used to develop multiple indicators of sustainable health.