3.8: The Dietary Guidelines For Americans

The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines provides four overarching Guidelines that encourage healthy eating patterns at each stage of life and recognize that individuals will need to make shifts in their food and beverage choices to achieve a healthy pattern. The four goals discuss dietary patterns and nutrient density, which refer to:

• A Dietary pattern is the combination of foods and beverages that constitutes an individual’s complete dietary intake over time. This may be a description of a customary way of eating or a description of a combination of foods recommended for consumption.
• Nutrient-dense foods and beverages provide vitamins, minerals, and other health-promoting components and have little added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. Vegetables, fruits, whole grains, seafood, eggs, beans, peas, and lentils, unsalted nuts and seeds, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, and lean meats and poultry—when prepared with no or little added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium— are nutrient-dense foods.

Here are the four overarching goals of the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans:

1. Follow a healthy dietary pattern at every life stage, it is never too early or too late to eat healthfully.
2. Customize and enjoy nutrient-dense food and beverage choices to reflect personal preferences, cultural traditions, and budgetary considerations.
   • A healthy dietary pattern can benefit all individuals regardless of age, race, or ethnicity, or current health status. The Dietary Guidelines provides a framework intended to be customized to individual needs and preferences, as well as the foodways of the diverse cultures in the United States.
3. Focus on meeting food group needs with nutrient-dense foods and beverages, and stay within calorie limits.
   • An underlying premise of the Dietary Guidelines is that nutritional needs should be met primarily from foods and beverages—specifically, nutrient-dense foods and beverages. Nutrient-dense foods provide vitamins, minerals, and other health-promoting components and have no or little added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. A healthy dietary pattern consists of nutrient-dense forms of foods and beverages across all food groups, in recommended amounts, and within calorie limits. The core elements that make up a healthy dietary pattern include:
     • Vegetables of all types—dark green; red and orange; beans, peas, and lentils; starchy; and other vegetables
     • Fruits, especially whole fruit
     • Grains, at least half of which are whole grain
     • Dairy, including fat-free or low-fat milk, yogurt, and cheese, and/or lactose-free versions and fortified soy beverages and yogurt as alternatives
     • Protein foods, including lean meats, poultry, and eggs; seafood; beans, peas, and lentils; and nuts, seeds, and soy products
     • Oils, including vegetable oils and oils in food, such as seafood and nuts
4. Limit foods and beverages higher in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium, and limit alcoholic beverages.
   • At every life stage, meeting food group recommendations—even with nutrient-dense choices—requires most of a person’s daily calorie needs and sodium limits. A healthy dietary pattern doesn’t have much room for extra added sugars, saturated fat, or sodium—or for alcoholic beverages. A small amount of added sugars, saturated fat, or sodium can be added to nutrient-dense foods and beverages to help meet food group recommendations, but foods and beverages high in these components should be limited. Limits are:
     • Added sugars—Less than 10 percent of calories per day starting at age 2. Avoid foods and beverages with added sugars for those younger than age 2.
     • Saturated fat—Less than 10 percent of calories per day starting at age 2.
     • Sodium—Less than 2,300 milligrams per day—and even less for children younger than age 14.
     • Alcoholic beverages—Adults of legal drinking age can choose not to drink, or to drink in moderation by limiting intake to 2 drinks or less in a day for men and 1 drink or less in a day for women, when alcohol is consumed. Drinking less is better for health than drinking more. There are some adults who should not drink alcohol, such as women who are pregnant.

MyPlate: Implementation of the Dietary Guidelines

Have you ever heard of the Food Wheel, or the Food Guide Pyramid, or MyPyramid? Each of these were guides created by the USDA to help Americans eat a healthy diet. Since 1916, there have been iterations of the guides based on new learning and evidence. The most recent guide for eating a healthy diet is called MyPlate. Interested in learning more about the different guides? Check out the History of the USDA Food Guides.

Healthy eating is important at every stage of life and is unique to you as an individual. MyPlate was created to be used in various settings and adaptable to meet personal preferences, cultural foodways, traditions and budget needs. MyPlate works best when it is customized for the individual consumer to include eating style, food likes and dislikes, cultural foodways, and family favorites. The simplicity of MyPlate makes it a versatile and flexible tool for any audience.

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): MyPlate versus Garbage Plate

Activity: MyPlate

The MyPlate website is filled with tools, tips, and resources to help you create a healthier eating routine.

To get started, take the MyPlate Quiz which will help you assess your current eating routine and identify your healthy eating interests.

Upon completion of the quiz, you will receive a snapshot of how you’re doing on the food groups, along with personalized resources and tip sheets.

You can also sync your quiz results in the free Start Simple with MyPlate app and set food group goals based on those results.