Guidance for monitoring healthy diets globally

Monitoring of dietary intake at national and global levels is becoming increasingly important with the changing food systems and diets. Better measurement and monitoring are needed to support governments in establishing policies and programmes to promote healthy diets and assess the effectiveness of these actions. However, there is lack of consensus on the indicators that best capture the properties of healthy diets. Recognizing the need for consensus and action, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO), have joined forces to chart a way forward via Healthy Diets Monitoring Initiative (HDMI). 

This is the first version of the guidance for monitoring healthy diets globally, which provides an overview of healthy diets measurement purposes, types of surveys suitable for the monitoring purpose, appropriate dietary assessment methods, relevant dietary data types and potential healthy diet metrics for national and global monitoring purposes. The guidance will be enhanced in the coming years to reflect the most up to date technical and operational recommendations, after rounds of consultations with countries and experts actively engaged in the implementation of surveys and data collection processes.