TREND OF MORE AND LESS HEALTHY FOODS CALORIE PROPORTION IN IRANIAN HOUSEHOLDS FOOD BASKET AND ENERGY COST, 1991-2015

Background healthy foods, nutrient rich foods with minimum content of sugar, fat and salt, has attracted global attention for decades. So Nutrient-rich food (NRF) index, as a food classification method based on the definition of healthy food, has been developed. And, this study aimed to identify the trend of more and less-healthy foods calorie proportion and its association with energy cost, using NRF index.Methods This study was based on a data source of Iranian Household Income-Expenditure Survey (IHIES) from 1991 to 2015. and NRF score was used to classify food items to more healthy (the highest quartile) and less healthy (the lowest quartile) foods. Results the mean of more-healthy food calorie portion was relatively constant at 0.06 of total calorie of food basket. while the mean of less-healthy food calorie portion decrease from 0.16 in 1991 to 0.13 in 2015. And energy cost of more and less healthy food respectively, were about twice and thrice of the other foods (mid-quartile of NRF score) in each year of the study.Conclusions the calorie proportion of more and less healthy food items in Iranian households food basket showed relatively a stable trend from 1991 to 2015. But in each year of the study, the distribution of calorie among more and less healthy foods shows decreasing trend in Calorie proportion for energy cost. Therefore, price modification in favor of more healthy foods could be an appropriate choice of actions to make a healthier households food basket.