What If There Were No Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA)?

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[quote=Adele Hite,  Director and Co-Founder of Healthy Nation Coalition]If there were no DGA telling Americans what to eat, would heart disease mortality spike? Unlikely, since heart disease death rates had been in decline for over a decade before the DGA were creat-ed. Would rates of obesity and diabetes climb even further? Under current conditions, i.e. DGA recommendations being followed or ignored depending on who you ask, the predictions are by 2030, more than half of Americans will be obese and, by 2050, one in three Americans will have dia-betes. As obesity and diabetes rates did not begin their rapid ascent until after the DGA were created , it is not likely eliminating them would make mat-ters worse.

In fact, the DGA are far more than health prescrip-tions that Americans do or do not follow. They are a powerful political document, and they regu-late a vast array of federal programs and services, influence health-related research, and direct how food manufacturers respond to consumer demand. Virtually no aspect of our food environment is unaf-fected by the DGA. It is worth considering what impact their absence would have on these other areas.

From the beginning, the DGA created clear “win-ners” and “losers” in our food system. Winners were processed food manufacturers who could refor-mulate products to meet DGA standards; losers were farmers who produced eggs and meat, which couldn’t be easily modified. When the DGA directed consumers to avoid saturated fats, manufacturers replaced them with trans fats. “Pink slime” emerged from the beef industry’s efforts to produce low -er fat products. Olestra, high-fructose corn syrup, polydextrose, soybean oil, and other products of the food science laboratory were used to make food “healthier,” giving food manufacturers the opportu-nity to plaster health claims on labels and directing consumer attention away from whole foods, which carry no labels and no such claims. The disappear-ance of the DGA would help level the playing field and perhaps begin to eliminate some unwanted additives from our food supply.

Because the DGA influence research agendas, they have imposed their shape on emerging science; its outcomes reflect the policy in whose image it is made. Without the DGA, government-funded nutri-tion science would operate without the ideological constraints created by government-backed dietary advice. Without the DGA, a diabetes prevention tri-al using a reduced-carbohydrate diet might not just be an idle fantasy, but an NIH-funded reality. 

Without the DGA, federal nutrition programs could tailor their programs and practices to the needs of the individuals and communities that they serve, instead of being directed by remote, one-size-fits-all, top-down dietary guidance.

Finally, the DGA assert that science has unques-tionably established links between diet and chronic disease. It hasn’t, but the DGA’s list of “good” and “bad” foods implies chronic disease is entirely under the control of the consumer. This assumption plac -es the burden for prevention and cost of care on individuals, relieving the government and other institutions of the responsibility to improve eco-nomic, environmental, and social conditions related to health. Eliminating the DGA would open up the possibility for rethinking this approach to public health.

In many ways, the DGA were a big fat mistake. It is time we acknowledge that and move on, not by turning the current DGA “upside down,” but by throwing them out altogether. Would Americans starting eating dirt—or chairs? I don’t think so. Maybe, they might just start eating—better.
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