Make Every Bite Count With the Dietary Guidelines

Source: Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Download Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025. This edition marks the first time the Guidelines provide recommendations by life stage, from birth through older adulthood.

Each stage of life is distinct and has unique needs that affect health and disease risk. Early food preferences influence food and beverage choices later. And the science has evolved to focus on the importance of a healthy dietary pattern over time. The science also shows it’s never too late to start and maintain a healthy dietary pattern, which can yield health benefits in the short term and cumulatively over years. This new edition of the Dietary Guidelines includes specific recommendations for all life stages, now including infants and toddlers, and pregnant and lactating women. We are excited this is the first edition to provide guidance for every life stage.

This edition of the Dietary Guidelines is grounded in robust scientific reviews of the current body of evidence on key nutrition and health topics for each life stage. We thank the 20 distinguished scientists on the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee for their expertise and dedication in conducting an independent scientific review that was characterized by more transparency and public participation throughout the process than ever before. The Committee’s work culminated in a comprehensive scientific report on the current state of nutrition science and provided advice to the Departments for our development of this 9th edition of the Dietary Guidelines. The Committee also included important considerations for future research, such as a need to reconsider the Dietary Reference Intakes. The U.S. and Canadian Dietary Reference Intake Steering Committees are currently developing plans to re-examine energy, protein, fat, and carbohydrate–the timeline for these macronutrient reviews has not been established. USDA and HHS are looking forward to jointly funding the work to help guide our Departments’ research agendas in the coming years.

With the science must come practice—that is, making food and beverage choices that align with the Dietary Guidelines. Using the new edition of the Dietary Guidelines, we hope Americans can find ways to “Start Simple” and incorporate modest changes each day that push Americans closer to meeting the recommendations. It’s more important than ever to make healthy eating a priority in the United States. With the release of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, we have an important call to action for you as health professionals and policymakers. We are asking you to help the public “make every bite count with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.” Help people make food and beverage choices that are rich in nutrition—individual choices that can become a healthy routine over time, choices they can enjoy in good health for many years to come.

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