The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are the cornerstone of Federal nutrition policy and nutrition education activities. Since 1980, the Guidelines have been jointly issued and updated every 5 years by the Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS).

In 1998, the USDA and HHS Secretaries selected 11 nutrition scientists and physicians to serve on the 2000 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. The Committee was responsible for reviewing and updating the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.


Publications

After a 1½ year of review and 4 meetings, the Committee submitted their final report to USDA and HHS: Report of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2000.

In May 2000, the Secretaries ofUSDA and HHS released a 40-page  consumer booklet entitled, Nutrition and Your Health: Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which became the 5th edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  This booklet evolved from the previous 4x9 inch brochures to a larger 8½ x11 booklet.  Also released was an abbreviated 10-page fold-out consumer brochure in both English and Spanish.  The President of the United States mentioned the release of these Dietary Guidelines for Americans during his radio address to the Nation.

To familiarize people with the new information in this 5th edition of the Dietary Guidelines, USDA produced a chart comparing all five editions of the Guidelines as well as an introductory PowerPoint presentation.

Based on these new guidelines, HHS and USDA published a toolkit for professionals and USDA later published five consumer brochures as part of its Putting the Guidelines into Practice series. These include:

* For high-resolution files of these brochures, contact CNPP Publications Specialist, Jane Fleming, at (703) 305-7600 or Jane.Fleming@cnpp.usda.gov.
 

Last Modified: November 25, 2009 01:53 PM