Dietary Guidelines for Americans, First Edition

The United States Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services jointly released the first edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans in 1980, aiming to provide dietary advice that would improve the health of Americans and reduce their risk for chronic conditions such as cancer, atherosclerosis, hypertension, heart disease, stroke and renal disease. The guidelines have been revised every five years since, and one recommendation has held consistently across all nine editions since: that Americans reduce their dietary consumption of fat and animal products. The 1980 edition followed, and gave federal standing to, the recommendations the 1977 McGovern Report on dietary goals had already argued for.