Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).
The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) report is well underway. The committee either has submitted or is about to submit its report to HHS and USDA. The report has not yet been posted, but presumably will be posted soon.
But understand: the scientific advisory committee is just that: advisory.
The agencies, HHS and USDA, are responsible for writing the actual guidelines. They choose an internal committee to do that work. That new committee can pick, choose, add, or subtract from the advisory committee’s report.
So yes, the new Secretaries of HHS and USDA can have a lot of input (and veto power) into the new guidelines.
As I’m fond of repeating, the guidelines process was quite different when I was on the DGAC in 1995. Then, our committee chose the research topics, reviewed the research, wrote the advisory committee report, and wrote the actual dietary guidelines. The agencies made only minor tweakings.
The agencies have written the guidelines since 2005, making the process much more subject to politics.
The DGAC, for example, viewed the evidence on ultra-processed foods as too limited to take a stand, yet RFK, Jr says ultra-processed foods are killing us.
The development of the 2025-2030 guidelines will be most interesting to watch. Stay tuned.
The post Can Robert F. Kennedy, Jr influence the Dietary Guidelines? Most definitely, yes. appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle.
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016). In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).
