Project 2025's Plans to Rollback Dietary Guidelines
Project 2025's Plans to Rollback Dietary Guidelines
A headline in last week’s Guardian caught my eye. It read, “Project 2025 dietary rollbacks would limit fight against ultra-processed foods.” Political news junkies and readers of this newsletter are likely well aware of Project 2025 – the roughly 900-page conservative policy roadmap created by the Heritage Foundation for a possible Trump Administration. [You can read the plan fully here, though it could ruin your day.] The former president has said he knows nothing about Project 2025 and has no idea who is behind it. To say that strains credulity is an understatement given one of the key chapter authors, Russell Vought, was a former Trump administration official, who also serves as the Republican National Committee’s 2024 platform policy director. But I digress, back to the dietary guidelines.
A Brief Primer on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines
The U.S. Dietary Guidelines are a set of recommendations developed to promote health, prevent chronic diseases, and help people maintain a healthy weight. They are used to inform food policies, educational campaigns, and nutrition programs like school meals and federal nutrition assistance programs, like SNAP and WIC. The guidelines are updated every five years by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
These agencies appoint a Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) comprised of independent, nationally recognized nutrition and health experts to review current scientific research and evidence on diet, nutrition, and health outcomes and provide recommendations to inform the guidelines. The public is given an opportunity to comment and provide feedback on DGAC’s report. HHS and USDA use the DGAC's report, along with public input, to draft the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This draft is reviewed by both agencies, with final revisions made based on feedback from various stakeholders. Published every 5 years, the guidelines are used by health professionals, policymakers, and the general public to guide dietary habits and nutritional programs in the U.S. You can see the current 2020-2025 guidelines and related materials here.
One key recommendation is easy to remember, and you probably already know this: “Limit foods and beverages higher in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium, and limit alcoholic beverages.”
Do We Need the U.S. Dietary Guidelines?
Project 2025 answers with a resounding NO, saying: “There is no shortage of private sector dietary advice for the public, and nutrition and dietary choices are best left to individuals to address their personal needs. This includes working with their own health professionals. As it is, there is constantly changing advice provided by the government, with insufficient qualifications on the advice, oversimplification to the point of miscommunicating important points, questionable use of science, and potential political influence.” In sum, Project 2025 says we should leave dietary choices up to the individual and that we shouldn’t trust the government guidelines because they are based on questionable science and subject to potential political influence.
So, let’s examine this. Today, 73% of the U.S. food supply is made up of ultra-processed foods (UPFs), and the average US adult gets 60% of their daily calories from UPFs. You know them as the tempting, highly palatable, ready-made, readily available, and almost addictive items that are high in fats, sugars, and salt. They are typically low in essential nutrients like fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
And we love them, not because we’re morally weak and don’t give a hoot about our nutrition. But because they are made to hook us, are well-placed in supermarkets, and are aggressively pushed by food corporations that manufacture, market, and distribute them (see here, here, here). A recent paper argues that UPFs are a misnomer, as they “are not how food has been defined, perceived, deliberated on, engaged with, and experienced by humans over millennia.” Rather than ultra-processed foods, they should be called ultra-processed products. [I’m also intrigued by another title I came across in writing this piece – a 2023 book by Chris van Tulleken titled Ultra-processed People: Why We Can't Stop Eating Food that Isn't Food. I haven’t read it, but it’s on my list.]
Project 2025 refers to the questionable use of science in the development of the Guidelines. It’s hard to tell what science they find questionable. Are they talking about the peer-reviewed research that finds an association between excessive intake of dietary sugars, salt, and fat and increased risk of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and certain cancers [here, here, here]? Science is always advancing, so information can become outdated or even prove inaccurate. Thus, the Guidelines, along with other governmental and non-governmental health recommendations, may lag behind the latest scientific research. Maybe that’s what Project 2025 means. And a lot of new science and evidence can emerge over a 5-year period, so they have a point. But much of the Dietary Guidelines' core advice has remained consistent over the last 40 years, calling on Americans to consume more fruit, vegetables, and whole grains, and less refined grains, added sugars, salt, and fatty meat.
As for Project 2025’s argument about political influence affecting the Guidelines? Well, with a lot of money (and people’s health) at stake, lobbying and political influence certainly occur in the process. Nutritionists, public health advocates, and public interest groups engage, but they are no match for the food companies’ deep pockets, in-house resources, and paid lobbyists in the game. You can read more about this here, here, here.
Why We Need U.S. Dietary Guidelines
The typical American diet leaves a lot to be desired. Put simply, we don’t eat all that well. We consume too much salt, processed meat, and sugary drinks and not enough healthy foods like whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables. (see here, here, here).
The typical American diet is shortening the lives of many people. Worldwide, diet-related deaths outrank deaths from smoking [more global data here]. Almost half of all U.S. deaths from heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes are linked to poor diets (here). And nearly 900 people in the U.S. die each day from heart disease linked to poor diets (see here, here).
The U.S. Dietary Guidelines are an important tool for health promotion and disease prevention.
They help reduce health disparities by addressing the nutritional needs of different populations, including low-income families, older adults, and children.
They help shape national food policies, school meal programs, and other public health initiatives like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), thus promoting healthy eating among vulnerable populations.
They provide nutritional advice and information that healthcare providers can use with their patients.
They can encourage food manufacturers to reduce unhealthy ingredients, like sodium and trans fats, in their products to align with health recommendations. Who knows, they may even influence marketing and the reformulation of processed foods.
Despite Project 2025’s call to eliminate the Guidelines, the next edition -- Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030 – is already well on its way. This week (Oct 21-22), the DGAC held its sixth and final meeting related to the 2025-2030 edition of the Guidelines. The Committee reviewed and discussed the scientific findings and advice that will be included in its Scientific Report, and federal staff discussed the next steps in the process of developing the 2025-2030 guidelines.
Following the meeting, the Committee will finalize and submit its Scientific Report to DHHS and USDA. The Scientific Report will contain the committee’s findings from its evidence reviews and independent advice on what to include in the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. You can view a videocast of the DGAC meeting here.
From the White House
In 2022, the Biden-Harris Administration hosted the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to catalyze the public and private sectors around a coordinated strategy to accelerate progress and drive transformative change in the U.S. to end hunger, improve nutrition and physical activity, and close the disparities surrounding them. You can watch some of it here.
The Administration announced and released a national strategy on hunger, nutrition, and health, with a goal of ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical activity by 2030 so fewer Americans experience diet-related diseases— while reducing related health disparities. Read more and the full strategy here.
In short, the strategy’s five pillars are:
Improving food access and affordability
Integrating nutrition and health
Empowering all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices
Supporting physical activity for all
Enhancing nutrition and food security research
And this year, the Administration announced $1.7 billion in new commitments and a national call-to-action to stakeholders across all of society to make commitments to advance President Biden’s goal to end hunger and reduce diet-related diseases by 2030—all while reducing health disparities.
My Bottom Line
There is no question that unhealthy food and diets are taking a toll on the health of our families, friends, coworkers, and communities. Sure, we can take our own steps to eat healthier, but it’s not all that easy when we are bombarded with unhealthy choices. The kids want cookies, soft drinks, and sugar-sweetened cereal. My local supermarket has ONE WHOLE AISLE of different potato chips! Personal willpower is all well and good, but we need help, which will probably not be forthcoming in the near term from the food producers.
The U.S. Dietary Guidelines offer some of that help and guidance. They certainly do us no harm. To my mind, they are a vital tool for shaping healthier food environments, improving public health, and reducing the burden of diet-related diseases. If we can improve them over time, let’s do that. But by all means, let’s keep them.
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