Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Sponsors National Nutrition Month

Educating Americans that they have the tools to make healthy food choices is the focus of this year’s campaign for National Nutrition Month, which is sponsored by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in partnership with Health.gov, the online home of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, part of HHS.

The campaign seeks to highlight tools that include the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, which call for getting at least 150 minutes of moderate activity each week.

The most recent Dietary Guidelines were adopted with some controversy after lobbyists for the meat industry pushed backed against provisions that included creating a more sustainable food supply. But the guidelines did advance recommendations that Americans cut back on sugar, limiting intake to no more than 10% of daily calories. And FDA followed up by approving a long-awaited Nutrition Facts label that will break out “Added Sugar” for the first time.

National Nutrition Month comes at a difficult time for healthy eating advocates, as reports increase that obesity has reached a crisis point in many parts of the country, and the new Trump administration seems poised to roll back many of the Obama-era directives for healthy school lunches. Elsewhere, since last year the City of Philadelphia has successfully implemented a soda tax (although beverage distributors continue to fight it).

The academy, and other experts, reports that making small, sustainable changes over time will do more for health than trying to make drastic changes that won’t stick.

The current issue of Evidence-Based Diabetes Management™, published this month, is focused on evidence in support of lifestyle management.