Making Healthier Food and Drink Choices
A look at U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans and National Nutrition Month®
National Nutrition Month® is a time to focus on making informed food choices and developing healthy eating and physical activity habits. Small changes to the way you eat can have big health benefits — helping to prevent health problems like heart disease, high blood pressure, and type-2 diabetes.
The 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, developed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), provides key recommendations to encourage healthy eating.
Healthy Eating Patterns
The Dietary Guidelines focuses on eating patterns — the combination of food and beverage choices over time. Healthy eating patterns include a variety of nutritious foods like vegetables, fruits, grains, low-fat and fat-free dairy, lean meats and other protein foods and oils. They limit saturated fats, added sugars, and sodium
Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference
Making changes to eating patterns can be overwhelming. Small shifts in food choices — over the course of a week, a day, or even a meal — can make a big difference while helping change feel manageable. For example, the benefits of shifting from white bread to whole wheat bread, or from soda to seltzer water, can add up. Remember, every food and beverage choice is an opportunity to move toward a healthy eating pattern!
For More Information
Learn more and review the detailed recommendations in the 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.