Many Americans consume more calories than they need without meeting recommended intakes for a number of nutrients. This circumstance means that most people need to choose meals and snacks that are high in nutrients but low to moderate in energy content; that is, meeting nutrient recommendations must go hand in hand with keeping calories under control. Doing so offers important benefits—normal growth and development of children, health promotion for people of all ages, and reduction of risk for a number of chronic diseases that are major public health problems.
The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (the NLEA) and the final regulations to implement the NLEA (January 6, 1993), provide for a number of fundamental changes in how food is labeled, including requiring that nutrition labeling be placed on most foods, requiring that terms that characterize the level of nutrients in a food be used in accordance with definitions established by FDA, and providing for the use of claims about the relationship between nutrients and diseases or health-related conditions. These changes apply to virtually all foods in the food supply, including, in large measure, to foods sold in restaurants.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans give science-based advice on food and physical activity choices for health. Dietary guidelines are general dietary guidance for good health made publicly available by recognized governmental or private health professional organizations. Dietary Guidelines generally promote moderate intake of nutrients such as sodium, fat, and saturated fat and increased consumption of grains, fruits, and vegetables.
 A nutrient content claim is a claim about the nutrient content of a particular food. Claims about a food that suggest that the food, because of its nutrient content, may be useful in maintaining healthy dietary practices and that are made in conjunction with an explicit claim or statement about a nutrient.
The Dietary Guidelines describe a healthy diet as one that:
The recommendations in the Dietary Guidelines and in My Pyramid are for the general public over 2 years of age.
My Pyramid helps individuals use the Dietary Guidelines to:
MyPyramid for Kids is a child-friendly version of the new MyPyramid Food Guidance System released by USDA on April 19, 2005. The colorful MyPyramid for Kids graphic was designed for children 6-11-years old. The graphic includes the child-tested tagline, Eat Right. Exercise. Have Fun., that encourages school children to make healthy eating choices and be more physically active.
MyPyramid for Kids is a child-friendly version of MyPyramid, the new USDA Food Guidance System. It was developed to help motivate children 6-11-years old to make healthy food choices and be physically active every day. The MyPyramid for Kids messages are the same as MyPyramid but are written in simpler language for children. MyPyramid for Kids includes illustrations of children involved in a variety of physical activities and shows healthy foods from each food group that will appeal to children. The graphic, slogan, and messages of MyPyramid for Kids were developed for and tested with elementary school-aged children.
Based on dietary intake data or evidence of public health problems, intake levels of the following nutrients may be of concern for:
In general, Americans consume too many calories and too much saturated and trans fats, cholesterol, added sugars, and salt.
A basic premise of the Dietary Guidelines is that food guidance should recommend diets that will provide all the nutrients needed for growth and health. To this end, food guidance should encourage individuals to achieve the most recent nutrient intake recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, referred to collectively as the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs).
An additional premise of the Dietary Guidelines is that the nutrients consumed should come primarily from foods. Foods contain not only the vitamins and minerals that are often found in supplements, but also hundreds of naturally occurring substances, including carotenoids, flavonoids and isoflavones, and protease inhibitors that may protect against chronic health conditions.
Two examples of eating patterns that exemplify the Dietary Guidelines are the DASH Eating Plan and the USDA Food Guide. These two similar eating patterns are designed to integrate dietary recommendations into a healthy way to eat and are used in the Dietary Guidelines to provide examples of how nutrient-focused recommendations can be expressed in terms of food choices. Both the USDA Food Guide and the DASH Eating Plan differ in important ways from common food consumption patterns in the United States. In general, they include:
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