Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion

USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. The Healthy Eating Index (HEI) is a measure of diet quality in terms of conformance to Federal dietary guidance. It is used to monitor the quality of American diets; to examine relationships between diet and health-related outcomes and between diet cost and diet quality; to determine the effectiveness of nutrition intervention programs; and to assess the quality of food assistance packages, menus, and the U.S. food supply. The HEI is a scoring metric that can be applied to any defined set of foods, such as previously collected dietary data, a defined menu, or a market basket, to estimate a score. The HEI-2010, which assesses diet quality as specified by the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, is made up of 12 components, as shown below. The total HEI-2010 score is the sum of the component scores and has a maximum of 100 points. HEI-2010 1 component Maximum Standard for maximum score Standard for minimum score of zero ▲ Adequacy (higher score indicates higher consumption)