The 2000 Dietary Guidelines for Americans

Abstract

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans form the foundation of US federal nutrition policy. Each federal nutrition program in the United States uses the Dietary Guidelines as one part of the nutrition standard. Therefore, every day the guidelines directly impact 21.4 million Americans receiving food stamps, 26 million children who participate in the school lunch program, 7 million children participating in the school breakfast program, and approximately 7.4 million Wteien, infants, and children receiving benefits under the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The Food Guide Pyramid ( (1) Welsh S. Davis C. Shaw A. Development of the Food Guide Pyramid. Nutr Today. 1992; 27: 12-23 Google Scholar ), the most widely distributed and best-recognized nutrition education device ever produced in the United States, is based in part on the US Dietary Guidelines. Every member of the Year 2000 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (Fig. 1) contributed countless hours to the report upon which this manuscript is based. We are indebted to them. We thank the dedicated staff members from HHS (Linda Meyers, PhD; Kathryn Me Murry, MS; and Joan Lyon, MS) and USDA (Shanthy Bowman, PhD; Carol Davis, MS, RD; and Alyson Escobar, MS, RD) who assisted with the preparation of the report. We are grateful to Carol Suitor, PhD, RD, for her expert editorial assistance throughout the process of preparing the report.