Revised Nutrition Guidelines

The National Health and Medical Research Council last week released new nutritional guidelines for Australian adults, adolescents and children. The new guidelines were released to highlight new research into appropriate dietary choices and to promote good nutrition and health. This comes at a time where obesity and type-2 diabetes are at an all-time high in Australia, with numbers set to rise further.

The guidelines recommend regular consumption of fruits and vegetables. Though this is nothing new, recent studies have shown a variety of vegetable types and colours can reduce the risk of some cancers. Similarly, consumption of a wide range of fruits has been shown to decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Perhaps more obviously, the guidelines suggest strong evidence exists that sugar-sweetened drinks are associated with weight (fat) gain.

There is also new evidence suggesting eating whole grain products can decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease, excessive weight gain and type-2 diabetes. Milk and other dairy products have also been shown to decrease the risk of heart disease in some cases.

Committee chairwoman Doctor Amanda Lee summarises -
"We need to eat double the amount of vegetables and fruits, double the amount of wholegrain cereals, much more milk, yoghurt and low-fat cheese, and increasing our lean poultry and fish,"

Detailed guidelines can be found at http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/n31.pdf

A simplified poster can be found at http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/n32.pdf