Characterizing the urban diet: development of an urbanized diet index.

We derived an urbanized diet index that captured dietary urbanization that was distinct from overall urbanization and performed well across all regions of China. This urbanized diet index provides an alternative to measures of traditional versus urbanized diet that vary across regions due to different cultural dietary traditions. In addition, the new measure is best used in combination with diet quality measures, sociodemographic, and lifestyle measures to examine distinct pathways from urbanization to health in urbanizing countries.