- The World Health Organization has released new publications presenting the latest scientific thinking regarding the role of fats and carbohydrates in a healthy diet.
- For adults, the WHO still recommends limiting fat consumption to 30% or less of daily calories.
- For carbs, the new guidelines place emphasis on the source over its quantity.
- The new guidelines also present new information for parents hoping to set their children on a healthy lifelong relationship with eating and nutrition.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has just released updated dietary guidance based on the most recent research and evidence.
The new guidance comes in the form of several documents, including:
In general, the WHO is focusing less on fat and carbohydrate quantity than it might have in the past and looking more closely at quality.
Not everything the WHO has to say is new. For example, the organization continues to recommend that adults should limit their consumption of fats to 30% or less of their daily calories.
A person’s energy intake is measured as calories provided by carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and alcohol.
However, worldwide obesity has
The WHO guidelines find, for example, that children under the age of 2 should ingest mostly unsaturated fats. WHO strongly recommends that they should consume no more than 10% of their total calories from saturated fats, with 1% or less being trans-fatty acids.
Nutritionist Michelle Routhenstein, who was not involved in the WHO publications, said, “before, it was just generally ‘limit fat to 30% of energy intake.’’
“And now, we’re really looking at saturated fat being a culprit in cardiovascular disease development because it’s directly correlated with an…
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