The newest edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030, originally slated for 2025 release, has now been delayed until early in the new year. The guidelines are crucial in working to prevent disease and to develop federal food, nutrition, and health programs and policies. For policymakers, educators, and public health officials, these guidelines serve as a foundational blueprint for the nation’s health priorities regarding food and nutrition.
Given significant interest among important leaders and the public at-large, the delays in publication are worrisome with respect to uncertainty about future policy, and especially with escalating concern about the erosion of evidence and reason-based science when adopting federal nutritional policy.
More specifically, these guidelines are woven into the fabric of society, and our communities that are currently battling issues like chronic disease and obesity. Thus, the creation of these guidelines must be backed by facts and not reactive, agenda-driven claims. Yet the department responsible has not demonstrated that it can consistently incorporate rigorous science into the policies it plans to adopt. For the first time in my professional life, I fear that I can no longer direct my students and consumers to federal sources for sound information.
Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again Commission has previously drawn my critiques due to the aggressive campaign that they spearheaded. This MAHA commission released two reports, the first of which sought to examine the “root cause of deteriorating childhood health,” and the second revealed the blueprint for the specific strategy that would target these root causes.
RFK and the Health and Human Services Department blamed the rising childhood disease rates and the decline of American health on specific foods and ingredients, with a strategy of seeking to make sweeping policy changes that would eliminate entire groups of foods. Such absolute claims ignore decades of research demonstrating that diet patterns, not consumption of isolated foods in moderation, drive health outcomes.
Reports suggest that the new guidelines may replicate much of what we have seen from MAHA thus far. The current belief is that the guidelines will encourage Americans to eat more saturated fats by dropping current limits. The argument that foods like butter and beef tallow have been unfairly “demonized” contradicts the consensus of leading health organizations.
The 2020-2025 guidelines advised keeping saturated fat intake below 10%, which was initially advanced by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. Abandoning this consensus without a compelling body of new evidence is not reform, it is regression.
The swift departure from established science is a common theme from MAHA and manifests itself in other nutritional fallacies.
MAHA also continues to place an extreme amount of emphasis on seed oils as a promoter of inflammation and high fructose corn syrup as the key ingredient in rising rates of obesity, despite a decline in its presence in our foods. Further, every major scientific body states that it is largely nutritionally equivalent to sugar. Similarly, ultra-processed foods have become a focal point for eradication. While some processed foods can be nutritionally poor, others are composed of natural ingredients and components including fiber, minerals, vitamins and other nutrients, and can be beneficial to add to a healthful diet.
This is one of biggest flaws in attacks on our food supply: overgeneralization. It’s found in MAHA’s strategy directives, it’s likely to appear in the guidelines, and it’s a massive problem for the future of American public health. The MAHA agenda’s goal of improving child health is commendable; however, rupturing established investigative processes risks undermining policy recommendations.
Government guidance must focus on education and and support for nutrition research rather than instituting strict policies that restrict people’s freedom of choice when it comes to their food intake. Good intentions cannot compensate for weak evidence, and embedding weak evidence into federal guidance could cause harm that lasts far beyond a single administration.
The upcoming Dietary Guidelines for Americans are an important reminder that science needs to remain at the forefront of public health. The guidelines are highly consequential for the next half-decade, and will have their fingerprints in doctors’ offices, on school lunch plates, and throughout grocery stores.
Each moment of delay could mean greater splintering of the rigorous science, evidence-based reasoning, and scientific accuracy we depend on. Simply put, there’s no margin for error here. As a registered dietitian with a doctorate in foods and nutrition, I can attest that the growing disconnect between science and policy is troubling and demands substantial scrutiny.
Mark Kern, PhD, is a professor in the School of Exercise and Nutritional Sciences at San Diego State University.