Nutrition experts from across the U.S. are set to issue the 2020 nutritional guidelines next spring. The new guide will include proper diets for infants two years old and younger in an effort to address growing dietary mistakes for young children. Nutritionists gather in Washington, D.C. every five years to discuss the proper diets for Americans. Previous international guidelines prioritized older people and lacked updates to babies’ nourishment. The document mainly aims to guide federal agencies in their funding and programs. It also provides a list of recommended food for hospitals and students. The Need For Proper Diet For Babies Over the past years, the print and online media have been providing tips on how to feed babies. But the overwhelming information increases the risk of giving young children the wrong diet. Even pediatricians also used wrong information for their recommendations in the past, according to Steve Abrams, chairman of the committee on nutrition of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). He noted that officials have been looking at scientific evidence from recent studies to create new recommendations in the new dietary guidelines. Joan Meeks, a pediatrician at the Florida State University College of Medicine, said the AAP committee are analyzing the strength and quality of the evidence while considering important factors such as population involved, funding of studies and how people provided data to researchers. For baby nourishment, Abrams said the committee created 30 questions about maternal and infant health that officials will discuss in the coming months through spring of 2020. Among the topics are the right time to introduce solid food to infants and women’s prenatal and lactation diets, Popular Science reported Monday. Abrams noted the goal of the new dietary guidelines is to provide people with options not to restrict their diets. For parents, the document should guide them in decision making while considering different circumstances when feeding their babies, he said. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to receive the recommendations early in 2020. It would then assess the list and create international guidelines similar to the “My Pyramid and My Plate” approach. Source
