Dietary Guidelines Should Be Led by Science—Not Politics
Amidst the many harmful proposals in the House Farm Bill, there is one that may be flying under the radar: attempts to undermine the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Dietary Guidelines are used to compile evidence-based advice on what people in the United States should eat and drink to maintain a healthy diet. They are updated every five years by the USDA and Health and Human Services (HHS), informed by a scientific report with recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), an independent panel of nutrition experts. The Dietary Guidelines serve as the foundation for federal government nutrition education materials and, importantly, for 16 nutrition assistance programs, including the National School Lunch Program, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and Older Americans Act nutrition programs. As a result, the Dietary Guidelines directly influence the diets of 1 in 4 Americans.
In May, the House proposed Farm Bill language that would directly undermine the Dietary Guidelines, stemming from industry lobbying and misinformation around the process to update the Guidelines. The Farm, Food and National Security Act of 2024 (H.R. 8467), introduced by House Agriculture Committee Chairman G.T. Thompson, proposes multiple provisions that would harm the scientific independence and integrity of the Dietary Guidelines process. Most egregiously, H.R. 8467 aims to install a new “Independent Advisory Board”—appointed partially by USDA and HHS and partially by members of Congress—that would determine the scientific topics reviewed by the DGAC. Setting the research agenda for the DGAC is currently carried out by USDA and HHS in a yearlong process that allows for public comment; this change would explicitly introduce politics and does not ensure public involvement in the process.
Furthermore, H.R. 8467 aims to limit the questions reviewed by the DGAC, prohibiting consideration of the impact of policies and other social and environmental factors (such as socioeconomic status and cultural practices) that are known to influence our diets. As Professors of Medicine and Nutrition and former members of the DGAC ourselves, we can attest that these exclusions, clearly ideologically motivated, risk preventing the Dietary Guidelines from evolving along with the evidence and serving all Americans.
Forty public health and nutrition organizations opposed these provisions in a September 9 letter, citing the potential harm to scientific integrity, public health, and health equity. Unfortunately, misinformation about the Guidelines has continued to spread. Recently, an op-ed in The Hill went so far as to claim that the Dietary Guidelines have actively contributed to our nation’s chronic disease epidemic. It is true that we are facing a national health and nutrition crisis, but the Dietary Guidelines are not to blame. In fact, they have been, and can continue to be, part of the solution.
A 2024 systematic review found that eating a diet more aligned with the Dietary Guidelines, as measured by the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), was associated with a lower risk of death overall and from cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, the average American HEI score is 58 out of 100, showing poor alignment with the Guidelines. There are many causes of our diet woes, but the federal government’s nutrition advice is not one of them.
Like any process, the Dietary Guidelines process can always be improved. For example, one positive proposal in the Farm Bill is that public disclosure of each DGAC member’s conflicts of interest should be required. However, the process has unquestionably become more rigorous and transparent over time, subsequently leading to improvements in the programs that the Dietary Guidelines inform.
School meals, which came under attack in King and Achterberg’s opinion piece, are a perfect example of the Dietary Guidelines actively improving nutrition outcomes through the food environment. The 2015 Dietary Guidelines recommended limiting added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories daily, yet the 2020-2025 DGAC found that 70 to 80 percent of children still exceeded this limit. As a result, USDA introduced specific added sugar limits for school meals and the Child and Adult Care Food Program, which will be fully implemented by 2026. In short, school meals admittedly have too much sugar, but that is about to change for the better because of the research-based recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines. In fact, even before the new added sugar limit, evidence showed that schools are the healthiest source of meals for children due to improved alignment with the Dietary Guidelines.
Given the number of people and programs impacted by the Dietary Guidelines, there are serious risks for public health if misinformation and lobbying from special interests (for example, the dairy industry continuously attempting to weaken saturated fat and added sugar limits, or the power of the meat industry and agriculture interest groups to prevent food sustainability from being included in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines) threaten to undermine the science-backed nutrition guidance they provide. The proposed language in the Farm Bill creates a gaping hole for industry to exploit, betraying the public trust yet again.
For the Dietary Guidelines to have the greatest impact on the health and nutrition of families across the country, it is crucial that USDA and HHS continuously improve and facilitate public trust in the process. However, politically motivated attempts to dismantle the current process have negative ramifications for all of us, but more critically they compromise access to healthy food for the millions of Americans who depend on federal nutrition programs. Congress (and industry) should leave the science to the experts and abandon this proposal in the next Farm Bill.