To get America healthy again the U.S dietary guidelines need to change. The guidelines should be based on sound scientific evidence.
This new petition from forbetterdietaryguidelines.org outline 11 smart and evidence-based reforms that could help improve people's health:
- Undertake a communications campaign to let Americans know that the low-fat diet is no longer officially recommended
- Ease or life caps on saturated fats.
- Offer low-carb diets as a viable option for fighting chronic disease.
- Offer a meaningful diversity of diets.
- Make the DGA diets nutritionally sufficient, with nutrients coming from whole foods, not artificially fortified refined grains.
- Stop telling Americans to do aerobic exercise for weight loss.
- Stop recommending "lower is better" on salt.
- Stop telling the public that reaching and maintaining a healthy weight requires little more than choosing "An appropriate calorie level".
- Stop recommending vegetable oils for health.
- Recommend regular meat and milk rather than the low-fat/lean versions.
- Don't issue guidelines based on weak, observational data.
This petition will be sent to the secretaries of the US Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA), which are jointly responsible for the dietary guidelines. With 100,000 signatures, we can also send the petition to the White House - and are entitled to a response.
This change is highly needed, so we recommend signing the petition:
Petition to change the dietary guidelines