Dietary Guidelines Reform Act of 2025

This bill changes how the federal Dietary Guidelines for Americans are written. It moves to a 10-year cycle, allows earlier updates when new science calls for it, and uses a public rulemaking process for each report. It tightens the science behind the advice, adds conflict-of-interest transparency, and keeps the focus on food and nutrition—not taxes, farm practices, labeling, or other non-diet topics. Until the first new report under this process is published, the 2020 guidelines stay in place.

Key points

• Who is affected: The federal agencies that write the Dietary Guidelines and the advisory groups that inform them.
• What changes:
  • Schedule: Issue guidelines at least every 10 years, with the option to update sooner when new dietary reference values or other science warrant it; give Congress 90 days’ notice before an update.
  • Independent Advisory Board: Up to 8 experts set the key scientific questions, then disband after finishing that task.
  • Stronger science: Advice must be based on “significant scientific agreement” using a defined evidence review with outside peer review, and each guideline gets a strength-of-evidence rating, including its impact on the Healthy Eating Index .
  • Practical advice: Include guidance for people with common diet-related diseases and make recommendations that are affordable and accessible for most people.
  • Transparency: Publicly post financial and nonfinancial conflict-of-interest disclosures and plans to manage them.
  • Scope limits: Exclude non-diet topics like taxes, social welfare policy, food production practices, labeling, socioeconomic status, race, religion, ethnicity, culture, or regulatory issues not about diet itself.
  • Ongoing science updates: Coordinate with the U.S.-Canada group to keep nutrient reference values current, encouraging at least one update per year.
• When: Provides $5 million each year from 2025 through 2029 to carry out these changes.