14.3 Understanding the Bigger Picture of Dietary Guidelines

Understanding the Bigger Picture of Dietary Guidelines

Dietary guidelines help people to stay on a healthful track by drawing attention to the overall scope of their diet and lifestyle. © Dreamstime

The first US dietary recommendations were set by the National Academy of Sciences in 1941. The recommended dietary allowances (RDA) were first established out of concern that

America’s overseas World War II troops were not consuming enough daily nutrients to maintain good health. The first Food and Nutrition Board was created in 1941, and in the same year set recommendations for the adequate intakes of caloric energy and eight essential nutrients.

These were disseminated to officials responsible for food relief for armed forces and civilians supporting the war effort. Since 1980, the dietary guidelines have been reevaluated and updated every five years by the advisory committees of the US Department of Agriculture

(USDA) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are continually revised to keep up with new scientific evidence-based conclusions on the importance of nutritional adequacy and physical activity to overall health. While dietary recommendations set prior to 1980 focused only on preventing nutrient inadequacy, the current dietary guidelines have the additional goals of promoting health, reducing chronic disease, and decreasing the prevalence of overweight and obesity.

Why Are Guidelines Needed?

Instituting nation-wide standard policies provides consistency across organizations and allows health-care workers, nutrition educators, school boards, and elder-care facilities to improve nutrition and subsequently the health of their respective

populations. At the same time, the goal of the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines is to provide packaged informative guidelines that will help any interested person in obtaining optimal nutritional balance and health. The ninth edition of the Dietary Guidelines was released in 2020 and are as follows:

1. 1. 1. Follow a healthy dietary pattern at every life stage.
      2. Customize and enjoy nutrient-dense food and beverage choices to reflect personal preferences, cultural traditions, and budgetary considerations.
      3. Focus on meeting food group needs with nutrient-dense foods and beverages, and stay within calorie limits (core elements that make up a healthy dietary pattern include all types of vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy, protein foods, and oils).
      4. Limit foods and beverages higher in added sugars, saturated fats, and sodium, and limit alcoholic beverages.

The Dietary Guidelines are formulated by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) from the review of thousands of scientific journal articles by a consensus panel consisting of more than two thousand nutrition experts with the overall mission of improving the health of the nation.1

We will discuss the highlights of each chapter of the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines; however if you are interested in reading more, visit the Dietary Guidelines for Americans website.

How should you develop a healthy eating plan to best achieve your goals of losing weight, gaining weight, or maintaining weight? We will start with some basics and move on to healthy eating patterns.

Foods and Food Components to Reduce

High consumptions of certain foods, such as those high in saturated or trans fat, sodium, added sugars, and refined grains may contribute to the increased incidence of chronic disease.

Additionally, excessive consumption of these foods replaces the intake of more nutrient-dense foods.

Table 14.4 A Little Less of These, Please!

The average person consumes 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day, mostly in the form of table salt. The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines recommend that Americans reduce their daily sodium intake to less than 2,300 milligrams. If you are over the age of fifty-one, are African American, or have cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, sodium intake should be reduced even further to 1,500 milligrams. The Dietary Guidelines also recommend that less than 10 percent of calories come from saturated fat, and that fat calories should be obtained by eating foods high in unsaturated fatty acids. Cholesterol intake should be decreased to below 300 milligrams per day and trans fatty acid consumption kept to a bare minimum. The Dietary Guidelines stress the importance of limiting the consumption of foods with refined grains and added sugars, and saturated fat. Moreover, if alcohol is consumed, it should be consumed only in moderation, which for women it is not more than one drink per day and for men is not more than two drinks per day. The macronutrients protein, carbohydrates, and fats contribute considerably to total caloric intake. The IOM has made recommendations for different age groups on the percentage of total calories that should be obtained from each macronutrient class.

Table 14.5 Healthy U.S.-Style Dietary Pattern at the 2,000-Calorie
Level, With Daily or Weekly Amounts From Food Groups,
Subgroups, and Components

The typical American diet lacks sufficient amounts of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and high- calcium foods, causing concern for deficiencies in certain nutrients important for maintaining health. The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines provide the following suggestions on food choices to achieve a healthier diet:

• Eat a variety of vegetables, especially dark green, red, and orange vegetables.
• Choose at least half of your grains consumed from whole-grain foods.
• For dairy products, eat the low-fat versions.
• Don’t get your protein only from red meats; choose instead seafood, poultry, eggs, beans, peas, nuts, seeds, and soy products.
• Replace butter with oils.
• Choose foods dense in the nutrients potassium, calcium, and vitamin D.
• Increase intake of dietary fiber.

Building Healthy Eating Patterns

Fresh vegetables and olive oil are examples of foods emphasized in the DASH and Mediterranean diets. © Thinkstock

The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines recommend that people make an effort to reduce their caloric consumption, reduce the intake of nutrient-poor foods, and increase the intake of nutrient-dense foods. To accomplish these tasks it is necessary to incorporate moderation and variety. The goal is not only choosing specific foods for your diet, but also the development of a healthy eating pattern. Several studies provide good evidence that certain dietary patterns increase overall health and decrease the risk of chronic disease. The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension trial, or DASH, reports that men and women who consumed more than eight servings per day of fruits and vegetables had lower blood pressures than a control group that consumed under four servings per day of fruits and vegetables.4 Other studies investigating the benefits of the DASH diet have also found it to be protective against cardiovascular disease and decrease overall mortality. Another well-known diet is the Mediterranean diet. In general, the Mediterranean diet is described as one that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts, and olive oil as a replacement for butter. Few meats and high-fat dairy products are eaten. Observational studies have linked the Mediterranean diet to reduced cardiovascular disease and decreased mortality. Vegetarian diets, which emphasize many of the same foods as the DASH and Mediterranean diets have also been linked to a decrease in incidences of some chronic diseases.

References and Links

1Johnson, T.D. “Online Only: New Dietary Guidelines Call for Less Salt, Fewer Calories, More Exercise.” Nation’s Health 41, no. 2 (March 2011): E6. http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/41/2/E6.full.

2 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans.

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/DietaryGuidelines/2010/PolicyDoc/Chapter1.pdf

3Nelson, J. and K. Zeratsky. “Dietary Guidelines Connect SoFAS and Weight Gain.” Mayo Clinic, Nutrition-Wise

(blog). August 25, 2010. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dietary-guidelines/MY01417.

4Sacks, F.M, et al., “Effects on Blood Pressure of Reduced Dietary Sodium and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Diet.” N Engl J Med. 344, no. 1 (January 2001): 3–10. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200101043440101.