From Dietary Guidelines to Dietary Guidance?

Abstract

One challenge is to make food consumption healthful and sustainable. Tools to achieve this include science-based documented dietary advice (here: 'dietary guidelines'), and policy-based initiatives and legislation (here: 'dietary guidance'). These two scientific and political tools operate independently, which may be counterproductive, especially if the future gives rise to high-impact scenarios of food crisis. This paper analyses, based on empirical trend data, the potential of dietary guidelines and guidance, and provides suggestions for these to align. Trend-analyses and empirical data point out that dietary guidelines, although relevant, achieve limited uptake by the consumer. Scientists apparently lack the management tools and communication channels to effectively reach the consumer, and thus major changes are not expected. By contrast, emerging issues such as the obesogenic environment and climate change are likely to call for greater involvement of policy-makers. This paper therefore advocates alignment of science and food policy. First, dietary guidelines, used for individual health promoting purposes, should be calibrated on global considerations. Guidelines on red meat consumption are recommended, as red meat consumption is a burden on both health and sustainability. Second, dietary guidance, used for global health and sustainability promoting purposes, should be calibrated on empowering the individual. Guidance in creating self-sufficient local food networks is recommended, as self-sufficient local food networks address both health and sustainability.