The National WIC Association (NWA) would like to share an update on the recently released 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) and The Scientific Foundation For The Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The DGA provides recommendations for the eating patterns of Americans and sets a standard for the country’s food programs to follow. The Scientific Foundation is an accompanying document that is meant to provide supportive evidence for the DGA.
Many of the DGA recommendations are similar to those of prior years, including a focus on eating whole grains and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Also of importance, the new DGA includes brief, high-level recommendations for pregnancy, lactation, and infancy and early childhood. These largely mirror the 2020-2025 DGA recommendations for pregnancy and birth through 24 months. The new DGA encourages exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, with continued breastfeeding alongside foods for two years or beyond, and gives guidance for the introduction of solid foods.
The new DGA, however, also includes some departures from past guidelines and recommendations from the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC). For example, it recommends full-fat dairy, butter, and other foods high in saturated fat as part of a healthy diet. This conflicts with the recommendation to limit saturated fat to 10% of total calories, which is retained in the 2025-2030 DGA. It also departs from the DGAC’s guidance to continue recommending fat-free or low-fat dairy.
Another major difference is the length of the new DGA–six pages as compared to over a hundred pages in the previous version. While a shorter version may be beneficial for the general public, the DGA has typically been designed for dietitians and healthcare providers to disseminate into practical recommendations, using other tools provided by the federal government, such as MyPlate. The limited materials provided with the 2025-2030 DGA may make it difficult for nutrition educators, such as WIC nutritionists, to educate the public on the recommendations.
While there is no immediate impact to WIC, NWA will be closely monitoring USDA’s next steps. USDA must review the WIC food packages every 10 years for alignment with the latest dietary guidance, and they have not yet indicated when they plan to undergo their next review. Additionally, we anticipate that the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) may begin making updates to WIC nutrition education materials based on the new DGA.
NWA welcomes additional feedback and questions from our members, and we look forward to working together through this next chapter of the DGA.