Efforts to prevent adolescent obesity could benefit from considering the degree of adherence to fed- eral dietary guidance, as assessed by the Healthy Eating Index-20010 (HEI-2010), in the peri- od preceding adolescence, especially among girls, according to a study published in the International Journal of Obesity. Researchers prospectively exam- ined the relationship between adherence to three index-based dietary patterns—measures of the overall diet that have the potential to serve as valuable obesity risk stratification tools—in childhood and BMI trajectory during the tran- sition to adolescence. The study included 581 chil- dren enrolled in a Colorado prospective cohort study conducted between 2006 and 2015. Dietary intake was assessed with the Block Kids Food Frequency Questionnaire at age 10. Scores were calculated for the HEI-2010, the alternate Mediterranean (aMED) diet, and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. Weight and height were assessed via anthropo- metry at two research visits (ages 10 and 16), with interim clinical measurements extracted from medical records. Separate mixed models were used to assess the association between each diet index score and BMI during a 6-year period. Models were stratified by sex and adjusted for age, race/ ethnicity, income, and exposure to gestational dia- betes. The median number of BMI assessments was 14 (10-18). Among girls, for every 10-unit increase in HEI-2010 score, there was an average 0.64 kg/ m2 decrease in BMI over time, after adjustment for covariates. Among girls, there was no association between BMI and aMED ( = -0.19) or DASH ( = 0.28). Among boys, there was no statistical- ly significant association between BMI and HEI- 2010 (0.06), aMED (0.07), or DASH (0.42).
