FAO is organzing the webinar “Unpacking Food-Based Dietary Guidelines” on June 4, 2019 providing an overview of food-based dietary guidelines. Presenter is Fatima Hachem, Senior Nutrition and Food Systems Officer of the Nutrition Education and Consumer Awareness Group, FAO.

In the arena of food and nutrition, consumers around the globe are bombarded with information and advice on how to eat better in order to improve health and well-being. Having dietary guidelines that are food-based, built on scientific evidence and culturally and economically appropriate to the local context is what governments have been engaged in establishing in the last few decades.  Although these guidelines were thought essentially as a consumer education tool, the data and information base on which they are founded goes beyond the nutritional problems at country level to span a wide area of related sectors and policies. This renders the dietary guidelines useful for a range of other usages while addressing the local public health and nutrition priorities, including public procurement, social protection, food subsidies, food security and nutrition and agricultural policies.

FAO has been actively assisting Member Countries in the development, implementation and revision of their Food-based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) and has been periodically reviewing the progress made in the development and use of FBDGs as well as tracking changes in their overall focus and orientation. FAO also hosts a growing online repository of FBDGs which is proving useful for researchers and policy-makers alike.

During the webinar an overview will be provided of food-based dietary guidelines focusing on the following questions:

• What are national FBDGs?
• How have they been traditionally used?
• What is their potential use?

The webinar will also highlight some examples of national FBDGs across the world, and present FAO’s current work in this field. Please follow this link for online registration.

This is the first of a series of 6 webinars on FBDGs that are organized by the Nutrition Education and Consumer Awareness Team of FAO

Context

Food-based dietary guidelines (also known as dietary guidelines) are intended to establish a basis for public food and nutrition, health and agricultural policies and nutrition education programmes to foster healthy eating habits and lifestyles. They provide advice on foods, food groups and dietary patterns to provide the required nutrients to the general public to promote overall health and prevent chronic diseases.

FAO assists Member Countries to develop, revise and implement food-based dietary guidelines and food guides in line with current scientific evidence. FAO also carries out periodic reviews on progress made in the development and use of dietary guidelines, tracking changes in their overall focus and orientation.

More than 100 countries worldwide have developed food-based dietary guidelines that are adapted to their nutrition situation, food availability, culinary cultures and eating habits. In addition countries publish food guides, often in the form of food pyramids and food plates, which are used for consumer education.

National food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) provide context-specific advice and principles on healthy diets and lifestyles, which are rooted on sound evidence, and respond to a country’s public health and nutrition priorities, food production and consumption patterns, sociocultural influences, food composition data, and accessibility, among other factors.

Typically, FBGDs propose a set of recommendations in terms of foods, food groups and dietary patterns to provide the required nutrients to promote overall health and prevent chronic diseases. Yet, many countries are now moving towards more holistic perspectives by addressing food combinations (meals), eating modalities, food safety considerations, lifestyle and sustainability aspects in their FBDGs.

88% of countries face a serious burden of either two or three forms of malnutrition: acute and/or chronic undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, obesity and diet-related diseases (including type II diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancer).

The causes of malnutrition are complex and multilayered, yet diet is one of the single most important contributors to malnutrition, which itself is influenced by many factors, from personal preferences to the broad national availability of foods.

FBDGs can serve to guide a wide range of food and nutrition, health, agriculture and nutrition education policies and programmes; therefore representing a unique opportunity to favourably impact diets and the food system, from production to consumption.