Keys to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans

I have big news!I'm debuting a new resource about the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and I made it especially for educators.It's comprehensive, engaging, creative, and even entertaining!It's...The Dietary Guidelines for Americans: What an Educator Needs to Know 4-hour CPE Course!This course has it all: engaging presentations, compelling handouts, loads of scientific research, in-depth analysis, and links to lots more information. With 7 fantastic lessons and a quiz to check your knowledge, this course offers a great new way to brush up on the latest edition of the Dietary Guidelines while getting loads of resources to help you communicate those key lessons to your clients.As a special preview, today I'd like to highlight the first few slides of one of the comprehensive Dietary Guidelines videos that come with the course.Enjoy!The Dietary Guidelines for Americans are written for nutrition and health professionals, designed to offer guidance to Americans age 2 and older, and featuring strategies to help them consume a healthy and nutritionally adequate diet.The information in these guidelines is used by policymakers to develop “Federal food, nutrition, and health policies and programs. It also is the basis for Federal nutrition education materials designed for the public and for the nutrition education components of HHS and USDA food programs.” You may remember the HHS — also known as the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA — also known as the United States Department of Agriculture, from the history of the guidelines film at the beginning of this course. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans arise from in-depth research of eating patterns, chronic disease, and general health. They outline how people can shift their eating habits in order to improve their health and reduce their risk of chronic disease.In order to address the key points of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, we’ve broken everything down into sections that follow the 3 chapters of the newest edition. Those 3 chapters address 5 different dietary guidelines.We’ll start with the first rule, which advises people to follow a healthy eating pattern throughout their lives. Personal food and drink choices are important, and people should choose a healthy eating pattern in order to maintain a healthy body weight, get enough nutrients, and reduce their chronic disease risk.The second guideline calls for a focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount of food. In order to get all the nutrients people need without going over their daily calorie limits, it’s important to choose a variety of nutrient-dense foods.The third guideline advises people to limit the calories that they consume from added sugars and saturated fats while also reducing their sodium intake. Advise your clients to consume these foods only in moderation.And here we are at the fourth guideline – shift to healthier food and drink choices. Across and within food groups, it is wise to choose nutrient-dense foods and drinks. People should be encouraged to choose those foods instead of less-healthy foods and drinks, making changes that are easy to accomplish and maintain.The fifth and final dietary guideline is to support healthy eating patterns for all. Everyone can come together to support healthy eating patterns.But wait, there's more! Food and Health members can also access a free preview of the exploration of the 14 appendices that come with the 2015-2020 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Drop by the post The Appendices of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans for more printable PDF slides and a closer look at this amazing new CPE course!And here are the free printable slides that come along with this post. How will you use your copy?There are lots of other educational resources for the Dietary Guidelines for Americans here in the Nutrition Education Store![shopify embed_type="product" shop="nutrition-education-store.myshopify.com" product_handle="sugar-math-tearpad" show="all"][shopify embed_type="product" shop="nutrition-education-store.myshopify.com" product_handle="2015-dietary-guidelines-poster" show="all"][shopify embed_type="product" shop="nutrition-education-store.myshopify.com" product_handle="sodium-math-tearpad" show="all"][shopify embed_type="product" shop="nutrition-education-store.myshopify.com" product_handle="2015-dietary-guidelines-powerpoint-show-and-handout-set" show="all"]