It looked like the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee might wrap up with one more meeting, but now it’s set for two.

The United States Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) joint process might be in for some renewed criticism, as RFK Jr. blamed the sorry state of public health largely on the FDA’s dietary recommendations and made it the center of the Presidential campaign.

Getting thrust into that campaign isn’t something HHS and USDA likely planned on.

However, HHS and USDA are inviting the public to attend the final two public meetings of the  2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

The sixth meeting will feature updates from each subcommittee on progress made since the committee’s fifth public meeting in May. Topics covered will include evidence review and synthesis, draft conclusion statements, and plans to finalize the committee’s work, including its scientific report.

A date for the seventh meeting is also set as a final meeting of the 2025 process. It can be viewed virtually via a live stream or by recording.

Meeting times:

• Meeting 6: Wednesday, Sept. 25, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. EST, and Thursday, Sept. 26, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. EST.
• Meeting 7: Monday, Oct. 21 – Tuesday, Oct. 22

The committee will accept comments from the public until Oct. 7, 2024. Submit written public comments.

More about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Since 1990, the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services have been required by law to publish the Dietary Guidelines for Americans every five years. The expert committee’s recommendations must be handed off to the Secretaries who make the final decisions.  The Dietary Guidelines then became the cornerstone of federal food and nutrition guidance.

“The nature of dietary guidance, providing advice on foods and nutrients to eat more or less of, has remained relatively consistent,” according to the government. “However, some of the specific messages have changed as the nutrition science has progressed and the methods used to review the science have advanced.”

The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) have identified proposed scientific questions with input from federal experts and the public and then gained the review of the  Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

 It has been up to the committee members to refine and prioritize the questions, collaborate to develop protocols that describe how they plan to review the science, review and synthesize the evidence based on their protocols, present their scientific findings, and consider public comments. 

The Committee’s work culminates in a comprehensive scientific report on the current state of nutrition science and provides independent recommendations to HHS and USDA. 

Upon delivery of its report to the Secretaries or when its 2-year charter expires, whichever comes first, the Committee’s activities will finish, and the Departments will develop the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines, informed by the Committee’s work, existing evidence-based federal guidance, federal agency input, and public comments. 

The Committee examined the evidence using three approaches: Data analysis, food pattern modeling, and systematic reviews. Each approach has its own rigorous, protocol-driven methodology and plays a unique, complementary role in examining the science. For each approach, staff from HHS and USDA supported the Committee’s review of the evidence.

Until recently, the update on the guidelines has not generated much controversy. 

The USDA and HHS are jointly responsible for updating the guidelines.

“The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is a framework for healthy eating, not a one-size-fits-all mold everyone must fit into,” the letter said. “ The U.S. population is diverse, reflected in what and how we eat. “

While HHS and USDA acknowledge that most Americans do not follow the guidelines, the U.S. wine industry is concerned about following the World Health Organization’s guidelines. U.S. dietary guidelines say men can safely have two drinks daily, and women can have one. Canada’s dietary guidelines recommend no more than two drinks per week, with polls showing that 66 percent of people aged 21 to 39 said they would cut back.

The current ninth edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) is for 2020-25. For the first time, it includes dietary guidelines for children from birth to 23 months.

At the end of the last five-year exercise, HHS and USDA rejected the advice of the last expert panel, which recommended that the guidelines set new lower targets for sugar and alcoholic beverage consumption.

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