Eatwell Guide – the bare facts

Abstract

In March 2016, the UK government's new Eatwell Guide was published following work to identify food‐based dietary guidelines consistent with the new UK fibre and free sugars recommendations adopted in 2015. The revised proportions of the model were developed using a technique known as optimisation modelling, which finds a combination of foods that meet a set of nutritional recommendations while deviating as little as possible from current dietary habits. This paper focuses on two recently published papers, one that describes the scientific rationale for the new proportions of the Guide and a second paper from the same research group exploring the effects on health that might be expected if the optimised diet depicted in the Guide were to be followed.

The Diet of Children Attending a Holiday Programme in the UK: Adherence to UK Food-Based Dietary Guidelines and School Food Standards

“…The results of the current study show that children have a better diet quality score on an attending club day compared to a non-attending club day, highlighting that children are more likely to adhere to the UK Eatwell Guidelines when they attend the club compared to days they do not attend. Greater adherence to the UK Eatwell Guidelines would be expected to bring numerous health benefits at a population level, including reduced prevalence to type 2 diabetes, lower rates of cardiovascular disease, and colorectal cancer and increased life expectancy [ 29 ].…”

Making every calorie count

“…It is intended to help all those aged over 2 years to eat a healthy, balanced diet. It was launched in 2016 by Public Health England as a refreshed version of the Eatwell Plate, to meet revised recommendations on free sugars and fibre, while minimising the need for significant changes to existing dietary habits [based on data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey ( NDNS )] (see Buttriss ). It was also developed with environmental sustainability of the depicted diet in mind, with more emphasis on plant‐based sources of nutrients.…”

“…National food‐based dietary guidelines, such as the UK's Eatwell Guide, have been developed using statistical approaches ( e.g . linear programming) that determine the minimum dietary changes required to move the current national diet to one which meets a set of nutrient recommendations (Buttriss ). In an analysis that set out to determine a global reference diet compliant with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement mentioned above, some commentators have gone further.…”