Original title: A Global Review of Food-Based Dietary Guidelines
Food-based dietary guidelines are national messages about what to eat, often shown as a picture of foods and proportions. This review compares guidelines available in 90 countries and checks them against recommendations from the WHOThe World Health Organization, whose dietary recommendations the review uses for comparison.. Many countries encourage varied diets, fruits and vegetables, legumes, and limiting sugar, fat, and salt. Advice about dairy, red meat, nuts, whole grains, and healthy fats varies more.
Imagine comparing the meal plans families use in different homes. Most include some familiar advice, but they disagree about how often to serve certain foods. In this paper, each home’s plan stands for a country’s eating guidance, and the comparison shows which messages are widely shared and which vary.
National dietary guidelines shape the advice people receive about what to eat. Comparing them shows where countries share a message—and where advice differs, including on foods the WHO encourages, such as nuts, whole grains, and healthy fats.
The review describes guidelines available in the FAO repository, not every country's guidance or what people actually eat. It compares the content of guidelines with WHO recommendations; the abstract does not report whether following the guidance improves health or how well countries put it into practice.
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A Global Review of Food-Based Dietary Guidelines — Anna Herforth, Mary Arimond, Cristina Álvarez-Sánchez et al. — Advances in Nutrition — doi:10.1093/advances/nmy130
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.