FDA’s Nutrition Initiatives

FDA’s Nutrition Goals

The FDA works to help empower consumers to build nutritious diets that support health and wellness. The U.S. faces an ever-growing epidemic of preventable diet-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. Racial and ethnic minority groups, those with lower socioeconomic status, those living in rural areas, and other underserved communities disproportionately experience these diet-related chronic diseases. Improving nutrition is one of the most effective public health interventions for reducing these and other chronic illnesses and premature death.

As food can be a vehicle for wellness, the FDA helps to support nutritious eating patterns by providing information that helps consumers make informed food choices and by encouraging industry to make foods healthier. And for those who rely on certain critical foods, such as infant formula, as their sole source of nutrition, the agency works to make sure those products are safe, properly labeled, and nutritionally sound.

FDA is committed to providing people with information and tools to help support healthy food choices with the following objectives as drivers.

Food as a vehicle for wellness

Healthy eating is influenced by a variety of factors including access to healthy, safe, and affordable foods as well as consumers’ knowledge, preferences, and culture.
Most people in the U.S. do not eat enough fruits, vegetables, dairy, seafood, whole grains and healthy oils, and consume too much saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars. These eating patterns do not align with federal dietary recommendations. At the FDA, we want to help consumers with their eating patterns by encouraging industry to make healthier foods and by providing information so that consumers can make informed choices.
For example, to promote a healthier food supply, the FDA has issued voluntary sodium reduction targets for industry in a wide variety of processed, packaged and prepared foods as part of an ongoing effort to support gradually reducing sodium across the food supply.

Supporting lifelong healthy eating patterns

Widely accessible, easy-to-understand information helps consumers identify healthier food choices, beginning at early ages and continuing throughout life.
The FDA is working towards finalizing and updating the definition of the nutrient content claim “healthy” to help consumers identify foundational foods for building healthy dietary patterns.
The FDA is developing a standardized front-of-package labeling system and finalizing a guidance about Dietary Guidance Statements on food packages to empower consumers, including those with lower nutrition knowledge, to quickly and easily identify foods that contribute to healthy eating patterns.
The FDA has also taken significant steps to support consumers in making more informed choices through more accessible information including the updated Nutrition Facts label and calorie labeling on certain menus and menu boards.

Reducing diet-related disease and advancing health equity

The U.S. faces an ever-growing epidemic of diet-related chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. Poor nutrition plays a key role in chronic but preventable diseases, which are leading causes of death and disability in the U.S.
Racial and ethnic minority groups, those with lower socioeconomic status, those living in rural areas, and other underserved communities disproportionately experience these diet-related chronic diseases compared to the overall population.
In addition to our labeling regulations, the FDA partners with other federal agencies so that consumers have information and resources at their fingertips and can use them effectively. As part of a broader, whole-of-government approach, and working with our federal agency partners such as those at USDA and HHS on initiatives such as the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and MyPlate, the FDA seeks to help reduce the burden of diet-related chronic diseases, advance health equity, and improve the health of future generations.

Key Elements of the FDA’s Approach to Nutrition

The FDA’s approach to nutrition supports a National Strategy to end hunger and increase healthy eating and physical activity by 2030, so that fewer consumers experience diet-related diseases like diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.

The FDA’s Nutrition initiatives encompass the following categories:

Providing Information and Labeling – The FDA requires food manufacturers to make information about their products available and accessible so that consumers know what is in their food and can make choices that support their health and wellness.

Promoting a Healthier Food Supply – The food industry plays a significant role in making food that is a vehicle for wellness. The FDA encourages and supports industry innovation to make foods healthier, such as through voluntary targets for reducing sodium in foods. In addition to informing consumers about their food choices, food labeling may also help foster a healthier food supply if some manufacturers choose to reformulate to create healthier products.

Communicating, Educating, and Engaging – We also have a role in educating consumers and health educators on how to interpret and use nutrition labeling information, providing timely and informative communications to a wide variety of stakeholders, and engaging with stakeholders regularly to hear their perspectives and work together to achieve shared goals.

Additional Resources