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Unified Dietary Guidelines

Top Health Organizations Issue Unified Dietary Guidelines

7/26/99

Eat right and you will live longer. It's a message the nation's top health organizations have each promoted over the years. Until now, however, there have been separate dietary recommendations for the prevention of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension.

One standard set of nutritional guidelines was published in the July 27, 1999, issue of Circulation: The Journal of the American Heart Association. "It's what the ACS has been saying all along. The emphasis is on eating a variety of foods, mostly fruits and vegetables, as well as a lot of cereal fibers, with very little simple sugar or high-fat foods, especially animal foods," said Abby Bloch, PhD, RD, chair of the ACS nutrition and physical activity advisory board, who helped lead the effort to publish unified guidelines.

The American Cancer Society,

the American Heart Association,

the American Dietetic Association,

the American Academy of Pediatrics, and

the National Institutes of Health.

Confused Cooks Now Have Answers

As a long-time teacher of "healthy eating" classes, Dr. Bloch has encountered a fair number of confused cooks. "People want to prevent cancer and heart disease and hypertension and stroke and keep their kids healthy," she said. "People wanted to know, 'What are we supposed to do?'"

According to the guidelines, the easiest ways to accomplish these goals are to:

Eat a variety of foods.

Choose most of what you eat from plant sources.

Eat six or more servings of bread, pasta, and cereal grains each day.

Eat high-fat foods sparingly, especially those from animal sources.

Keep your intake of simple sugars to a minimum.

Nearly five decades of research have proven the wisdom of those guidelines, Dr. Bloch added. However, not all Americans are following them. An estimated one-third of the annual 500,000 cancer deaths in the US is related to an unhealthy diet. Simply changing the way we eat can change that statistic, Dr. Bloch added. "Essentially, you need to make sure that your diet contains enough vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other important nutrients," she said.

Americans are Overeating

Statistics show average overall fat consumption is down to about 34 percent of calories in the average American diet, compared to 40 percent a few years ago. However, people are increasingly becoming obese.

The numbers on reduced fat intake hide a bigger problem: Americans are eating far too many calories, especially those hidden in the hundreds of at-free food products that have flooded supermarkets. "These may be fat-free foods, but if you eat too many calories, your body may turn those extra calories into fat," Doyle said.