Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The first set of guidelines was published asNutrition
and Your Health: Dietary Guidelines for Americansin
- Since then, an advisory committee has been
appointed every five years to review and revise the
guidelines based on the latest research in nutrition
and health.
Description
Early Dietary Advice in the United States
The first half of the twentieth century was a period
of enormous growth in nutrition knowledge. The pri-
mary goal of nutrition advice at this time was to help
people select foods to meet their energy (calorie) needs
and prevent nutritional deficiencies. During the Great
Depression of the 1930s, food was rationed and people
had little money to buy food. They needed to know
how to select an adequate diet with few resources, and
the USDA produced a set of meal plans that were
affordable for families of various incomes. To this
day, a food guide for low-income families—the
Thrifty Food Plan—is issued regularly by the USDA
and used to determine food stamp allotments. In addi-
tion to meal plans, the USDA developed food
guides—tools to help people select healthful diets.
Over the years the food guides changed, based on the
current information available.
Food Guides versus Dietary Guidelines
Food guides are practical tools that people can use
to select a healthful diet. Food guide recommenda-
tions, such as how many servings of grains to eat, are
based on dietary guidelines that are overall recommen-
dations for healthful diets. For example, the Dietary
Guidelines for Americans include the recommenda-
tion that Americans ‘‘choose a variety of grains
daily, especially whole grains.’’ To help people reach
this goal, the USDA’s Food Guide Pyramid is built on
a base of grain foods and recommends six to eleven
servings daily with several servings from whole grains.
Thus, the Food Guide Pyramid supports the recom-
mendations of the Dietary Guidelines.
Evolution of the Dietary Guidelines
During the 1970s, scientists began identifying
links between people’s usual eating habits and their
risk for chronic diseases such as heart disease and
cancer. They realized that a healthful diet was impor-
tant not only to prevent nutrient deficiencies, but
because it might play a role in decreasing the risk for
chronic diseases. Since heart disease andcancerwere,
and still are, major causes of death and disability in the
United States, there was a need to help Americans
select health-promoting diets.
The first major step in federal dietary guidance
was the 1977 publication ofDietary Goals for the
United States by the Senate Select Committee on
Nutrition and Human Needs, which recommended
an increased intake of carbohydrates and a reduced
intake of fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, salt, and sugar.
There was heated debate among nutrition scientists
when the Dietary Goals were published. Some nutri-
tionists believed that not enough was known about
effects of diet and health to make suggestions as spe-
cific as those given.
In 1980, the first edition of Dietary Guidelines for
Americans was released by the USDA and HHS. The
seven guidelines were: (1) Eat a variety of foods; (2)
Maintain ideal weight; (3) Avoid too much fat, satu-
rated fat, and cholesterol; (4) Eat foods with adequate
starch and fiber; (5) Avoid too much sugar; (6) Avoid
too muchsodium; and (7) If you drink alcohol, do so
in moderation. The second edition, released in 1985,
made a few changes, but kept most of the guidelines
intact. Two exceptions were the weight guideline,
which was changed to ‘‘Maintain desirable weight’’
and the last guideline, in which ‘‘alcohol’’ was changed
to ‘‘alcoholic beverages.’’
Following publication of the second edition of the
Dietary Guidelines, two influential reports concerning
diet and health were issued. TheSurgeon General’s
Report on Nutrition and Health was published in
1988, and the National Research Council’s report
Diet and Health—Implications for Reducing Chronic
Disease Riskwas published in 1989. These two reports
supported the goal of the Dietary Guidelines to pro-
mote eating habits that can help people stay healthy.
In 1990, the third edition of the guidelines took a more
positive tone than previous editions, using phrases
such as ‘‘Choose a diet.. .’’ or ‘‘Use... only in moder-
ation,’’ rather than ‘‘Avoid too much.. .’’ This was
seen as a positive step by many nutrition educators.
The fourth edition was the first to include the
Food Guide Pyramid, which had been introduced in- It also was the first edition to address vegetarian
diets and the recently introduced ‘‘Nutrition Facts’’
panel for food labels. The fifth edition, issued in
2000, expanded the number of guidelines to ten and
organized them into three messages: ‘‘Aim for Fitness,
Build a Healthy Base, and Choose Sensibly’’ (ABC).
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans have
evolved since they were first published in 1980. Their
recommendations represent the latest research in diet
and health promotion, and, as new research emerges,
Dietary guidelines