NHMRC release healthy eating guidelines

The National Health and Medical Research Council has released its draft Australian Dietary Guidelines and the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating for public consultation.

The draft guidelines provide evidence-based advice to health professionals and the general public about food choices to promote health and wellbeing and reduce the risk of diet-related diseases.

CEO of the National Health and Medical Research Council, Warwick Anderson, said the guidelines are grounded in good health outcomes, a strong evidence base and extensive consultation.

“Our expert committee analysed more than 55,000 papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature to develop the guidelines. The complete review process was deliberately long and broad in scope, and I am confident that this has resulted in the Australian Dietary Guidelines being fully supported by the best available evidence.”

Based on the evidence reviewed, key recommendations of the Guidelines include:

• People should eat a variety of nutritious food; advice that has not changed over many years, but is now reinforced with stronger scientific evidence.
• Most Australians need to increase our intake of vegetables, fruit, whole grain cereal foods, and milk products- particularly reduced fat varieties.
• Some population groups need to eat more of some food groups and less of others. For example, some women who consume an omnivore diet may benefit from eating more red meat, while some adult males may need to reduce their consumption.
• Most Australians may benefit from reducing excessive intake of energy-dense nutrient-poor foods and drinks which are high in saturated fat, salt and added sugar, particularly sugar sweetened drinks, if we are to tackle obesity and diet-related chronic disease.

Consultation on the draft Australian Dietary Guidelines, incorporating the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating, opens on 13 December 2011 and closes on 29 February 2012. To provide feedback or for more information, please visit: www.eatforhealth.gov.au

(Source: HealthInsite: Australian Dietary Guidelines and the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating)

More information

For more information on nutrition, including information on types and composition of food, nutrition and people, conditions related to nutrition, and diets and recipes, as well as some useful videos and tools, see Nutrition.