What Is the Issue?
Food prepared outside the home (food away from home, FAFH) comprises a significant share of U.S. consumers’ food expenditures, and FAFH intake has been linked to lower diet quality. Between 2006 and 2009, food spending declined 5 percent, due mainly to a 12.9-percent decline in expenditures on FAFH. This decline could have led to improvements in overall diet quality. However, the net effect on dietary intake and diet quality cannot be ascertained from expenditure data alone. This report documents how eating patterns and diet quality changed among working-age adults (those born between 1946 and 1985) from 2005 to 2010, a period that includes the recession of 2007-09, and explores the extent to which the change in diet quality can be attributed to changes in FAFH consumption.
What Did the Study Find?
The study found that changes in caloric intake were larger between 2005-06 and 2009-10 than between 2005-06 and 2007-08. In particular, the analysis found that:
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