In an unprecedented move, the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) discarded the scientific report that typically underpins the DGA, rejecting 30 of 56 recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC). The reason? The DGAC considered health equity.
Rather than adopt the DGAC’s Scientific Report, developed by independent experts using transparent, rigorous methods, the administration commissioned an alternative “Scientific Foundation” report. This new process lacked public input, included authors with problematic conflicts of interest, and used questionable scientific methods; yet it argued that the DGAC’s work was biased by their consideration of race, ethnicity, culture, and socioeconomic status as factors that may impact diet and health. In effect, a health equity lens became grounds for discarding the typical scientific foundation of the nation’s dietary guidance.
Health equity, defined by the World Health Organization as “the absence of unfair, avoidable, or remediable differences among groups,” means the chances of living a long, healthy life shouldn’t be determined by factors such as ZIP code, income, or race. Yet decades of research show that these and other factors shape health outcomes across populations. Applying a health equity lens to dietary guidance acknowledges this reality: not all households have the same resources or circumstances. Recognizing these differences doesn’t weaken scientific rigor—it makes guidance more likely to work in the real world, especially as food prices rise and food benefits are limited.
Considering health equity is also important because of significant disparities in chronic health conditions between sociodemographic groups in the United States, confirmed by the DGAC’s review. The DGAC’s health equity lens was meant to better understand these disparities and improve the DGA’s ability to provide guidance that was accessible and relevant to all.
Their approach did not “reverse the proper sequence of scientific inquiry,” as the Scientific Foundation report states. Rather, it used the pre-established scientific process to first examine dietary patterns and health outcomes in the general population, and then focused on specific populations who may face specific barriers. The DGAC looked closely at who was included in the studies reviewed and whether findings on dietary exposures and health outcomes held true across different communities.
For example, the DGAC conducted a systematic review of 110 studies and confirmed that dietary patterns higher in nutrient-dense plant foods and lower in saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars are associated with lower cardiovascular disease risk for adults. Next, the DGAC re-examined a subset of the articles with more non-White participants (and considered a range of income levels) and found consistent results: the same dietary patterns were linked to lower cardiovascular disease risk across groups.
The DGAC also explored the cultural relevance of their recommendations through a diet simulation pilot, testing whether recommended nutrient intakes could be met using foods commonly consumed by select American Indian and Alaska Native populations. This exercise confirmed that nutrient requirements could be met using the foods important to American Indian and Alaska Native diets.
Based on this work, the DGAC advised both the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to emphasize flexibility and illustrate adaptation for different social, economic, geographic, and cultural contexts. Such recommendations can assist federal food and nutrition assistance programs with implementing the guidance effectively and support individual adherence to dietary recommendations, increasing the DGA’s potential to improve nutrition security, diet quality, and related chronic disease outcomes. They were not included in the final DGA.
There are health equity concerns with both what the new DGA include—and what they leave out. First, the DGA’s internal inconsistencies and departures from established nutrition advice create confusion about healthy eating. Such confusion is more easily navigated by people with time, money, and access to expert guidance, potentially widening gaps in nutrition literacy.
By rejecting the DGAC’s guidance to adapt recommendations for “different social, economic, geographic, and cultural contexts,” the DGA offer less practical value for many Americans. Guidance that assumes access to certain foods—or emphasizes meat and dairy without promoting alternatives—fails to reflect how millions of people eat.
In addition, the dismissal of health equity in the DGA doesn’t happen in isolation. Emphasis on animal protein may push families toward more expensive foods while unprecedented cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reduce food access and the elimination of SNAP-Ed halts educational programming about making healthy choices on a budget. Together, these shifts risk deepening food and nutrition insecurity.
And rejecting the DGAC’s recommendations sends a troubling message: that considering health equity is bias rather than a core part of rigorous science. By sidelining recommendations designed to make the DGA more practical and inclusive, the 2025–2030 DGA miss an opportunity to improve adherence and reduce diet-related disease. If health equity can be used to disqualify evidence-based recommendations, one must ask: are the new DGA really meant to serve all Americans.
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Photo courtesy of Pille Priske, Unsplash
