The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025 provides advice on what to eat and drink to meet nutrient needs, promote health and help prevent chronic disease. This edition of the Dietary Guidelines is the first to provide guidance for healthy dietary patterns by life stage, from birth through older adulthood, including women who are pregnant or lactating. The 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines provides four overarching Guidelines that encourage healthy eating patterns at each stage of life and recognize that individuals will need to make shifts in their food and beverage choices to achieve a healthy pattern. The Guidelines also explicitly emphasize that a healthy dietary pattern is not a rigid prescription.

Make every bite count with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Here’s how:

1. Follow a healthy dietary pattern at every life stage.
   At every life stage — infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, pregnancy, lactation and older adulthood — it is never too early or too late to eat healthfully.

2. Customize and enjoy nutrient-dense food and beverage choices to reflect personal preferences, cultural traditions, and budgetary considerations.
   A healthy dietary pattern can benefit all individuals regardless of age, race, or ethnicity, or current health status. The Dietary Guidelines provides a framework intended to be customized to individual needs and preferences, as well as the foodways of the diverse cultures in the United States.

3. Focus on meeting food group needs with nutrient-dense foods and beverages and stay within calorie limits.
   An underlying premise of the Dietary Guidelines is that nutritional needs should be met primarily from foods and beverages — specifically, nutrient-dense foods and beverages. Nutrient-dense foods provide vitamins, minerals, and other health-promoting components and have no or little added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. A healthy dietary pattern consists of nutrient-dense forms of foods and beverages across all food groups, in recommended amounts, and within calorie limits.

4. Limit foods and beverages higher in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium, and limit alcoholic beverages.
   At every life stage, meeting food group recommendations — even with nutrient-dense choices — requires most of a person’s daily calorie needs and sodium limits. A healthy dietary pattern doesn’t have much room for extra added sugars, saturated fat, or sodium — or for alcoholic beverages. A small number of added sugars, saturated fat, or sodium can be added to nutrient-dense foods and beverages to help meet food group recommendations, but foods and beverages high in these components should be limited.

Additional resources and materials are provided online to support the use and implementation of the Dietary Guidelines.

The USDA created MyPlate, which encourages small changes that are doable, affordable, and result in lasting eating routines that promote good health. Go to www.choosemyplate.gov to get started with MyPlate. The website features practical information and tips to help you build a healthier diet at every age and stage of life.

U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025. 9th Edition. December 2020. Available at www.dietaryguidelines.gov.