Dietary History

"The first US dietary recommendations were set by the National Academy of Sciences in 1941. The recommended dietary allowances (RDA) were first established out of concern that America’s overseas World War II troops were not consuming enough daily nutrients to maintain good health. The first Food and Nutrition Board was created in 1941, and in the same year set recommendations for the adequate intakes of caloric energy and eight essential nutrients. These were disseminated to officials responsible for food relief for armed forces and civilians supporting the war effort. Since 1980, the dietary guidelines have been reevaluated and updated every five years by the advisory committees of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The guidelines are continually revised to keep up with new scientific evidence-based conclusions on the importance of nutritional adequacy and physical activity to overall health. While dietary recommendations set prior to 1980 focused only on preventing nutrient inadequacy, the current dietary guidelines have the additional goals of promoting health, reducing chronic disease, and decreasing the prevalence of overweight and obesity.\n\nWhy Are Guidelines Needed? Instituting nation-wide standard policies provides consistency across organizations and allows health-care workers, nutrition educators, school boards, and eldercare facilities to improve nutrition and subsequently the health of their respective populations. At the same time, the goal of the Dietary Guidelines is to provide informative guidelines that will help any interested person in obtaining optimal nutritional balance and health.\n\nThe seventh edition of the Dietary Guidelines was released in 2010 and focused mainly on combating the obesity epidemic. USDA secretary Tom Vilsack says, “The bottom line is that most Americans need to trim their waistlines to reduce the risk of developing diet-related chronic disease. Improving our eating habits is not only good for every individual and family, but also for our country.” The 2015 Dietary Guidelines focus on eating patterns, which may be predictive of overall health status and disease risk. The Dietary Guidelines were formulated by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which has recently changed their name to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). These guidelines are from the review of thousands of scientific journal articles by a consensus panel consisting of more than two thousand nutrition experts with the overall mission of improving the health of the nation 1."