The proposed language in the House Farm Bill would explicitly introduce political interests and damage the integrity of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans – the foundation of school meal programs, SNAP, WIC and other necessary nutrition programs for American families – writes former Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee members Mary Story, PhD, RD, and Eric Rimm, ScD.
Among the many harmful proposals in the House Farm Bill, there is one that may be flying under the radar: efforts 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), based on a scientific report with recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), an independent panel of nutrition experts. The Dietary Guidelines serve as the basis 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 the Older Americans Act. nutrition programs. As a result, the dietary guidelines directly impact the diets of 1 in 4 Americans.
In May, the House of Representatives proposed Farm Bill language that would directly undermine the Dietary Guidelines, due to industry lobbying and misinformation surrounding the process to update the Guidelines. The Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2024 (HR 8467), introduced by House Agriculture Committee Chairman GT Thompson, proposes several provisions that would harm the scientific independence and integrity of the dietary guidelines process. Most egregiously, HR 8467 aims to install a new “Independent Advisory Council” – appointed in part by USDA and HHS and in part by members of Congress – that would determine the scientific topics reviewed by the DGAC. Establishing the research agenda for the DGAC is currently being conducted by USDA and HHS in a year-long process that will allow for public comment; this change would introduce explicit politics and does not guarantee public involvement in the process.
Additionally, H.R. 8467 aims to narrow the questions reviewed by the DGAC by considering the impact of policies and other social and environmental factors (such as socioeconomic status and cultural practices) known to influence our diets. prohibit. As professors of medicine and nutrition and former members of the DGAC, we can attest that these exclusions, which are clearly ideologically motivated, risk that the dietary guidelines will evolve in tandem with the evidence and serve 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 care equity. Unfortunately, misinformation about the Guidelines continues to spread. Recently, an op-ed in The Hill went so far as to claim that the dietary guidelines have actively contributed to our country’s chronic disease epidemic. It’s 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 closely aligned with dietary guidelines, as measured by the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), was associated with a lower risk of death overall and cardiac – diseases and cancer. However, the average U.S. higher education score is 58 out of 100, indicating poor alignment with guidelines. There are many causes of our nutritional problems, but the federal government’s nutritional advice is not one of them.
Like any process, the Dietary Guidelines process can always be improved. For example, a 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 undoubtedly become more rigorous and transparent over time, which has subsequently led to improvements in the programs covered by the Dietary Guidelines.
School meals, which came under fire in King and Achterberg’s op-ed, are a perfect example of dietary guidelines that actively improve nutritional outcomes through the food environment. The 2015 Dietary Guidelines recommended limiting added sugars to less than 10 percent of calories per day, but the DGAC 2020-2025 found that 70 to 80 percent of children still exceeded this limit. As a result, USDA has implemented 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 may contain too much sugar, but that is about to change for the better due to the research-based recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines. Even before the new added sugar limit, evidence showed that schools are the healthiest source of meals for children, thanks to better alignment with dietary guidelines.
Given the number of people and programs affected by the Dietary Guidelines, there are serious public health risks from disinformation and lobbying from special interest groups (for example, the dairy industry’s continued efforts to weaken limits on saturated fat and added sugars, or the power of the meat industry and agricultural advocacy groups to prevent food sustainability from being included in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines) threaten to undermine the evidence-based dietary guidelines they provide. The proposed language in the Farm Bill creates a gaping hole for the industry to exploit, once again violating the public’s trust.
To ensure that the Dietary Guidelines have the greatest impact on the health and nutrition of families across the country, it is critical that USDA and HHS continually improve and facilitate public trust in the process. However, politically motivated efforts to dismantle the current process have negative consequences for all of us, but more importantly, they jeopardize access to healthy food for the millions of Americans who rely on federal nutrition programs. Congress (and industry) should leave the science to the experts and abandon this proposal in the next Farm Bill.