By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter
It’s time once again to weigh in on the federal dietary guidelines.
This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a change in the process used to develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) every five years.
This year, instead of a committee selecting the priority topics and scientific questions to be considered during the dietary guidelines consideration process, the administration has set its own topics and scientific questions.
The public is now invited to weigh in on those proposed priorities.
“The American taxpayer is an essential customer—indeed, a shareholder,” Brandon Lipps, acting deputy under secretary for the Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services at USDA, the administrative lead for the 2020-2025 DGA, said. “We’re proud to be taking this important step forward towards greater transparency and ensuring that the American public’s voice is heard throughout this process.”
The DGA is used for federal nutrition programs and policies, including the school lunch program.
According to USDA, it and the HHS are proposing a life stage approach to DGA that focuses on priority scientific questions from birth through older adulthood.
The 2014 Farm Bill, which expires at the end of September, mandates that this edition of DGA provide guidance for pregnant women, as well as infants and toddlers from birth to two years old.
The administration would also like the DGA to reflect a continued focus on eating and drinking patterns, on average and over time, not on individual foods or food groups.
“We know that good nutrition together with physical activity can help decrease Americans’ risk of developing serious health conditions across the life span,” Dr. Don Wright, deputy assistant secretary for Health at HHS, said. “The Dietary Guidelines for Americans help support healthy choices at home, school, work and in the community. That’s why we are encouraging the public and stakeholders in nutrition to submit comments up front to help inform the next edition of the guidelines.”
According to USDA, the proposed topics are based on four criteria outlined below:
- Relevance: the topic is within the scope of the DGA and its focus on food-based recommendations, not clinical guidelines for medical treatment;
- Importance: the topic has new, relevant data and represents an area of substantial public health concern, uncertainty and/or knowledge gap;
- Potential federal impact: there is a probability that guidance on the topic would inform federal food and nutrition policies and programs; and
- Avoiding duplication: the topic is not currently addressed through existing evidence-based federal guidance (other than the Dietary Guidelines).
Comments on the proposed topics and questions may be made through the Federal Register from now until March 30 on DietaryGuidelines.gov.
The comments will be used to create a final list of topics and supporting scientific questions that will be explored as the next DGA is developed.
After that is finalized, USDA and HHS will begin accepting nominations for people to serve on the DGA Advisory Committee.
Additional information on the process is available at DietaryGuidelines.gov.