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The Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS)–Meal and GDQS-Menu Metrics: How to Measure Meal and Menu Quality in Institutional Feeding Programs

The Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS)–Meal and GDQS-Menu Metrics: How to Measure Meal and Menu... To achieve equitable, environmentally sustainable, and nutritious food systems, transformational change is needed. One potential path to such change is through institutional feeding programs, such as schools feeding. Despite the wide reach of institutional feeding programs there has not until recently been a simple yet rigorous metric that can measure, track, and evaluate the nutritional quality of the meals and menus. This lack of standardized measurement is particularly noticeable in low- and middle-income countries, with the implication that the relative contribution of institutional feeding programs towards reducing malnutrition or how to invest to maximize impact remains largely unknown. The Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS)–Meal and GDQS-Menu metrics were designed to fill this gap and to enable consistent and accurate tracking of the nutritional quality of meals and menus around the world. Derived from the existing Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS) metric, the GDQS-Meal and GDQS-Menu metrics assign a point total for the overall nutritional quality of a meal or menu based on its performance of four sub-metrics: 1) Healthy GDQS-Meal (or Menu), 2) Unhealthy GDQS-Meal (or Menu), 3) Fortification and Biofortification, and 4) Food Group Diversity. The metrics were designed to be low-burden and easy-to-use while maintaining scientific rigor for individuals of all ages in schools and across other institutional feeding programs such as prisons and workplace cafeterias. Results from the GDQS-Meal and GDQS-Menu metrics can be used for identification of simple substitutions for healthier meal and menu options, enforcement of meal quality standards, benchmarking, educational purposes, and advocacy efforts to encourage institutional feeding programs to invest in healthier meal and menu options. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Nutrition Reviews Oxford University Press

The Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS)–Meal and GDQS-Menu Metrics: How to Measure Meal and Menu Quality in Institutional Feeding Programs

Bell, Winnie; Blakstad, Mia M; Milani, Peiman; Deitchler, Megan
Nutrition Reviews , Volume 83 (Supplement_1): 12 – May 30, 2025
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References (32)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Life Sciences Institute. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.
ISSN
0029-6643
eISSN
1753-4887
DOI
10.1093/nutrit/nuaf004
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

To achieve equitable, environmentally sustainable, and nutritious food systems, transformational change is needed. One potential path to such change is through institutional feeding programs, such as schools feeding. Despite the wide reach of institutional feeding programs there has not until recently been a simple yet rigorous metric that can measure, track, and evaluate the nutritional quality of the meals and menus. This lack of standardized measurement is particularly noticeable in low- and middle-income countries, with the implication that the relative contribution of institutional feeding programs towards reducing malnutrition or how to invest to maximize impact remains largely unknown. The Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS)–Meal and GDQS-Menu metrics were designed to fill this gap and to enable consistent and accurate tracking of the nutritional quality of meals and menus around the world. Derived from the existing Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS) metric, the GDQS-Meal and GDQS-Menu metrics assign a point total for the overall nutritional quality of a meal or menu based on its performance of four sub-metrics: 1) Healthy GDQS-Meal (or Menu), 2) Unhealthy GDQS-Meal (or Menu), 3) Fortification and Biofortification, and 4) Food Group Diversity. The metrics were designed to be low-burden and easy-to-use while maintaining scientific rigor for individuals of all ages in schools and across other institutional feeding programs such as prisons and workplace cafeterias. Results from the GDQS-Meal and GDQS-Menu metrics can be used for identification of simple substitutions for healthier meal and menu options, enforcement of meal quality standards, benchmarking, educational purposes, and advocacy efforts to encourage institutional feeding programs to invest in healthier meal and menu options.

Journal

Nutrition Reviews – Oxford University Press

Published: May 30, 2025

Keywords: meal quality; menu quality; metric development; institutional feeding programs; school feeding; school meals; GDQS; GDQS-Meal; GDQS-Menu; nutrient adequacy; NCD

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