Grant: Tm Gr.:Embr. Diversity to Achieve Precision/Health Equity-Nutrition/Meta. Health

Poor quality diet is a leading cause of illness, disability, and death in Canada. Dietary guidelines are meant to support healthy eating and overall health but largely use a 'one-size-fits all' approach. This does not consider the many factors that shape dietary intake like access to food, differences in biology that affect the body's response to food or the makeup of food itself. However, before we can make more precise dietary recommendations, we need to understand why dietary intake and the impacts of diet on health can vary widely. This is especially important to understand in a diverse group of Canadians as often people who are treated as if they are not important, have poorer diet quality, and poorer health. In this project we will draw on Canada's largest source of dietary intake, the HEAL study that is collecting dietary data from 130,000 people across Canada including diversity in ethnicity, gender, income and education. We will use state-of-the-art methods to measure how processed foods are in the food supply and in individuals' diets. This data will be used to understand how biological, environmental (where people live) and social factors play a role in why some people have better quality diets, and others have poorer quality diets. We will then study how diet is related to measures of health and test whether measures of metabolism can help explain why people can eat similar things but some stay healthy, and some develop disease. Our findings will provide new information on factors that lead to differences in diet and diet-related disease. This is important for tailoring dietary guidance and supporting the health of Canadians.