A new study in this month’s The Lancet Global Health Journal places the diet of the average Israeli among the healthiest in the world.
The study, which looked at dietary habits — both good and bad — of adults in 187 countries, placed Israel in ninth place overall.
The study, led by Dr Fumiaki Imamura of the University of Cambridge, is the first ever to assess diet quality in such a large number of countries at one time, covering 4.5 billion people.
In Israel, as in nearly all countries in the world, diet improved with age, with adults in their 50s
and 60s eating the most healthy foods, while eschewing the unhealthiest. However, younger Israelis tend to indulge in more junk food than they should.
In a separate metric measuring consumption of less healthy foods, Israelis rated about average, in the middle of the chart, instead of close to the top, as they did for their consumption of healthy foods.