New US Dietary Guidelines Are Here

April 11, 2021

4 min read

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines for individuals in the United States. Their goal is to provide advice and recommendations on dietary patterns to help promote health. The guidelines will be used over the next five years by policymakers, health care professionals and federal nutrition program developers to essentially dictate what Americans should eat.

Dietary Guidelines for individuals in the U.S. is a trusted resource for the nation for evidence-based guidance on nutrition. The guidelines are made for use by policymakers and healthcare professionals to provide the general public with a federal nutrition program foundation. The dietary guidelines shouldn't be seen as clinical guidelines for treating disease.

It's known that good nutrition results in better health outcomes and these new dietary guidelines provide people in the U.S. with the information they require to make healthy choices for themselves and their families.

The USDA and HHS release the U.S. Dietary Guidelines every five years for people in the U.S. These guidelines are "science-based" , and offer advice on which foods and beverages to consume:

Promote health
Meet nutrient needs
Reduce chronic disease risk

These guidelines are the first to provide health dietary patterns guidance by what the departments referred to as "life stages", since individuals of various ages should be eating different diets. There is also advice in the guidelines for pregnant and lactating women.

The new guidelines have the theme: “Make Every Bite Count”.

Americans can read through the full 2020-2025 dietary guidelines here:

Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025

What's Added to the Guidelines

The HHS and USDA have expanded this dietary guidelines edition to offer new guidance for newborns, toddlers, and women who are pregnant or breastfeeding to help individuals in the U.S. to improve their health regardless of their life stage or age.

There are recommendations in the guidelines for a dietary pattern rich in:

Vegetables
Fruits
Whole grains

And, there are recommendations for a dietary pattern low in sugar-sweetened food and beverages.

Also added in the guidelines are recommendations stating no amount of added sugar is fine for the development of babies. Parents shouldn't add sugar to a child's diet because of its strong link to future chronic health conditions and obesity.

The recommended added sugar amount instead stayed in the guidelines at 10% of daily calories, but there was a recommendation in the guidelines for kids under two years old to consume no added sugars at all.

Overall, the broad guidance is to have a healthy dietary pattern chock-full of nutrient-dense foods and beverages throughout all food groups (protein, rains, vegetables, dairy, oils, and fruits) within calorie limits and in recommended amounts.

What's Not Added to the Guidelines

The guidance doesn't discuss the topic of red meat, which is a major source of saturated fat in the American diet. The guidelines also don’t say much about processed foods. However, the guidelines do recommend replacing processed and high-fat meats, like bacon, sausages, and hot dogs, with lentils, peas, beans, or seafood to meet the daily protein needs.

There were recommendations to decrease current guidance from men having two drinks a day and women one, to both men and women having only one drink a day. It is guidance, however, and not a nutritional requirement thus far, so it's really about what people are both able and willing to do. Adults can decide to drink in moderation through limited consumption of a couple of drinks a day or less for men and one drink a day or less for women, or they can choose to not drink at all. The guidelines do say pregnant women shouldn't drink at all.

Foundations and Societies

American Society for Nutrition: ASNF improves our professional society's activities by enhancing the ways it supports the nutrition field.
Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: This organization is dedicated to promoting a healthy today and tomorrow for our communities and children.

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