The term "diet food" often conjures images of bland, restrictive meals designed solely for weight loss. However, a closer look reveals a more complex picture. This article explores the definition of diet food, its potential benefits and drawbacks, and how it fits into a broader understanding of healthy eating.
What is Diet Food?
Diet food, also known as dietetic food, refers to any food or beverage with a recipe modified to reduce fat, carbohydrates, and/or sugar, making it suitable for a weight loss program or diet. Terms like "light," "zero calorie," "low calorie," "low fat," "no fat," and "sugar-free" are often used to identify and describe these foods. In some regions, the use of these terms may be regulated by law.
The process of creating a diet version of a food usually involves finding a low-food-energy substitute for a high-food-energy ingredient. For example, sugar is often replaced with a sugar substitute in diet soft drinks like Diet Coke. In snacks, baking instead of frying reduces the food energy. Whole grain foods utilize high fiber content to displace some of the starch component, resulting in a moderate energy reduction, as certain fibers have no food energy.
The Nutritional Landscape: A Shift in Focus
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has updated the definition of the "healthy" nutrient content claim, which includes criteria a food must meet to use the "healthy" claim on the package. The FDA is also exploring the development of a symbol to represent the claim "healthy" to make it easier to spot foods that can be the foundation of healthy eating patterns.
The last time "healthy" was defined on packaging was in the 1990s. Based on the nutrition science and federal dietary guidelines at that time, the definition was solely focused on individual nutrients; for example, it included limits for saturated fat, total fat, cholesterol, and sodium and required a certain amount of beneficial nutrients like certain vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein.
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Today, we have a greater understanding of dietary patterns and their effects on health, and we recognize that foods are made up of a variety of nutrients that work together as part of a healthy dietary pattern. To be consistent with the latest nutrition science and federal dietary guidelines, the updated definition of "healthy" requires that:
- A food must contain a certain amount of a food group like fruits, vegetables, grains, protein foods, or dairy.
- A food can’t contain too much saturated fat, sodium, or added sugars.
Placing a "healthy" claim on a food package is voluntary. If manufacturers choose to do it, their products must have the nutrient content required by the “healthy” definition. Manufacturers who choose to use the “healthy” claim can use the new criteria starting on April 28, 2025.
Examples of Foods That Qualify (or Don't) Under the Updated "Healthy" Definition:
- Qualify: Nuts and seeds, olive oils, higher-fat fish like salmon, and eggs would qualify as healthy because of their nutrient profile. Water is also considered an optimal beverage.
- No Longer Qualify: Fortified white bread, highly sweetened yogurt, and highly sweetened cereal.
Making Healthier Choices: Beyond "Diet"
To make healthier food choices for yourself and your family, aim to eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy, and protein foods. Try to eat and drink more foods with lower amounts of saturated fat, sodium, and added sugars. You also can check the Nutrition Facts label on packaged foods to get information on specific nutrients and compare food products.
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025, many people aren’t eating enough vegetables, fruit, dairy, and seafood. And most people consume too much saturated fat, sodium and added sugars.
The Pitfalls of "Diet Foods"
While diet foods might seem like a convenient way to cut calories, there are potential drawbacks to consider:
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- Unnecessary Ingredients: Like so many manmade foods, diet foods usually contain thickeners, fillers, preservatives, and sweeteners. These aren’t a problem per se. But they can cause problems with your gut health, leading to bloating and discomfort. And they can make the food in question very moreish, meaning you’ll need extra willpower to avoid eating another serving.
- The Health Halo Effect: The health halo effect refers to our tendency to overestimate how healthy or low-calorie something is based on a single claim. For example, if we see “low fat” on a label, our brains will think it is low calorie and healthy - when it might not be either of these things.
- Satiety: One of the most important factors in a healthy fat loss diet is satiety. Low fat may not mean low calorie - after all, a bag of Percy Pigs is almost zero fat but they’re not a diet food.
- Processed vs. Whole Foods: Diet foods often use wholegrains as a way to fool you into thinking the food is more natural that it really is. A bowl of oats or rice is a good example of wholegrains.
- Marketing Tactics: Dairy free, gluten free, and suitable for vegans is not a sign that a food is diet friendly or healthy. Don’t let these marketing claims fool you.
A Balanced Approach: The Key to Healthy Eating
There’s nothing wrong with using the occasional diet food to support your fat loss efforts - they can be tasty and add variety to your daily diet. But the healthiest way to lose weight is to stick to natural, whole foods. Wholegrains, vegetables, fruits, berries, lean protein, legumes, pulses, beans and lentils give huge “bang for their buck” in terms of volume for the calories. They also contain more fibre than manmade foods, which will help fill you up so you can actually eat more food for your allotted calorie intake.
A regular diet is a healthy meal plan that includes a variety of healthy foods from all the food groups. Follow this meal plan if you do not have any health conditions that require a special diet. A healthy meal plan is low in unhealthy fats, salt, and added sugar.
My Plate is a model for planning healthy meals. It shows the types and amounts of foods that should go on your plate. Fruits and vegetables make up about half of your plate, and grains and protein make up the other half. A serving of dairy is also included.
The amount of calories and serving sizes you need depends on your age, gender, weight, and height. Eat a variety of vegetables such as dark green, red, and orange vegetables. Include whole grains. At least half of the grains you eat should be whole grains. Eat a variety of protein foods such as seafood (fish and shellfish), lean meat, and poultry without skin (turkey and chicken). Examples of lean meats include pork leg, shoulder, or tenderloin, and beef round, sirloin, tenderloin, and extra lean ground beef.
Choose and prepare foods with less salt and added sugars. Use the nutrition information on food labels to help you make healthy choices. The percent daily value listed on the food label tells you whether a food is low or high in certain nutrients. A percent daily value of 5% or less means that the food is low in a nutrient.
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Get enough fiber by regularly eating foods high in fiber. Limit foods high in unhealthy fats such as cholesterol, saturated fat, and trans fat. Foods high in cholesterol and saturated fat include hamburger, bacon, chicken or turkey skin, whole milk, and butter. Foods high in trans fat include packaged foods such as potato chips and cookies.
Limit alcohol. Women should limit alcohol to 1 drink a day. Men should limit alcohol to 2 drinks a day.
The WHO's Perspective on Healthy Diets
Consuming a healthy diet throughout the life-course helps to prevent malnutrition in all its forms as well as a range of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and conditions. lifestyles have led to a shift in dietary patterns. People are now consuming more foods high in energy, fats, free sugars and salt/sodium, and many people do not eat enough fruit, vegetables and other dietary fibre such as whole grains.
The exact make-up of a diversified, balanced and healthy diet will vary depending on individual characteristics (e.g. age, gender, lifestyle and degree of physical activity), cultural context, locally available foods and dietary customs. the basic principles of what constitutes a healthy diet remain the same.
For adults, a healthy diet includes:
- Fruit, vegetables, legumes (e.g. lentils and beans), nuts and whole grains (e.g. unprocessed maize, millet, oats, wheat and brown rice).
- At least 400 g (i.e. energy intake for additional health benefits (7). Free sugars are all sugars added to foods or drinks by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, as well as sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates.
- Less than 30% of total energy intake from fats (1, 2, 3). wafers, and cooking oils and spreads) and ruminant trans-fats (found in meat and dairy foods from ruminant animals, such as cows, sheep, goats and camels). 10% of total energy intake and trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake (5). In particular, industrially-produced trans-fats are not part of a healthy diet and should be avoided (4, 6).
- Less than 5 g of salt (equivalent to about one teaspoon) per day (8). Salt should be iodized.
For infants and young children:
In the first 2 years of a child’s life, optimal nutrition fosters healthy growth and improves cognitive development. It also reduces the risk of becoming overweight or obese and developing NCDs later in life.
Advice on a healthy diet for infants and children is similar to that for adults, but the following elements are also important:
- Infants should be breastfed exclusively during the first 6 months of life.
- Infants should be breastfed continuously until 2 years of age and beyond.
- From 6 months of age, breast milk should be complemented with a variety of adequate, safe and nutrient-dense foods. Salt and sugars should not be added to complementary foods.
Practical Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Diet
- Fruit and vegetables: Eating at least 400 g, or five portions, of fruit and vegetables per day reduces the risk of NCDs (2) and helps to ensure an adequate daily intake of dietary fibre.
- Fruit and vegetable intake can be improved by:
- always including vegetables in meals;
- eating fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks;
- eating fresh fruit and vegetables that are in season; and
- eating a variety of fruit and vegetables.
- Fruit and vegetable intake can be improved by:
- Fats: Reducing the amount of total fat intake to less than 30% of total energy intake helps to prevent unhealthy weight gain in the adult population (1, 2, 3). Also, the risk of developing NCDs is lowered by:
- reducing saturated fats to less than 10% of total energy intake;
- reducing trans-fats to less than 1% of total energy intake; and
- replacing both saturated fats and trans-fats with unsaturated fats (2, 3) - in particular, with polyunsaturated fats.
- Fat intake, especially saturated fat and industrially-produced trans-fat intake, can be reduced by:
- steaming or boiling instead of frying when cooking;
- replacing butter, lard and ghee with oils rich in polyunsaturated fats, such as soybean, canola (rapeseed), corn, safflower and sunflower oils;
- eating reduced-fat dairy foods and lean meats, or trimming visible fat from meat; and
- limiting the consumption of baked and fried foods, and pre-packaged snacks and foods (e.g. doughnuts, cakes, pies, cookies, biscuits and wafers) that contain industrially-produced trans-fats.
- Salt, sodium and potassium: Most people consume too much sodium through salt (corresponding to consuming an average of 9-12 g of salt per day) and not enough potassium (less than 3.5 g). blood pressure, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease and stroke (8, 11).
- Reducing salt intake to the recommended level of less than 5 g per day could prevent 1.7 million deaths each year (12).
- People are often unaware of the amount of salt they consume. In many countries, most salt comes from processed foods (e.g. in large amounts (e.g. bread). Salt is also added to foods during cooking (e.g. bouillon, stock cubes, soy sauce and fish sauce) or at the point of consumption (e.g. table salt).
- Salt intake can be reduced by:
- limiting the amount of salt and high-sodium condiments (e.g. soy sauce, fish sauce and bouillon) when cooking and preparing foods;
- not having salt or high-sodium sauces on the table;
- limiting the consumption of salty snacks; and
- choosing products with lower sodium content.
- Some food manufacturers are reformulating recipes to reduce the sodium content of their products, and people should be encouraged to check nutrition labels to see how much sodium is in a product before purchasing or consuming it.
- Potassium can mitigate the negative effects of elevated sodium consumption on blood pressure. Intake of potassium can be increased by consuming fresh fruit and vegetables.
- Sugars: In both adults and children, the intake of free sugars should be reduced to less than 10% of total energy intake (2, 7). A reduction to less than 5% of total energy intake would provide additional health benefits (7). Consuming free sugars increases the risk of dental caries (tooth decay). Excess calories from foods and drinks high in free sugars also contribute to unhealthy weight gain, which can lead to overweight and obesity. free sugars influence blood pressure and serum lipids, and suggests that a reduction in free sugars intake reduces risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (13).
- Sugars intake can be reduced by:
- limiting the consumption of foods and drinks containing high amounts of sugars, such as sugary snacks, candies and sugar-sweetened beverages (i.e. soft drinks, fruit or vegetable juices and drinks, liquid and powder concentrates, flavoured water, energy and sports drinks, ready‐to‐drink tea, ready‐to‐drink coffee and flavoured milk drinks); and
- eating fresh fruit and raw vegetables as snacks instead of sugary snacks.
- Sugars intake can be reduced by:
How to Promote Healthy Diets
Diet evolves over time, being influenced by many social and economic factors that interact in a complex manner to shape individual dietary patterns. healthy foods), individual preferences and beliefs, cultural traditions, and geographical and environmental aspects (including climate change). balanced and healthy diet - requires the involvement of multiple sectors and stakeholders, including government, and the public and private sectors.
Governments have a central role in creating a healthy food environment that enables people to adopt and maintain healthy dietary practices. Effective actions by policy-makers to create a healthy food environment include the following:
- Creating coherence in national policies and investment plans - including trade, food and agricultural policies - to promote a healthy diet and protect public health through:
- increasing incentives for producers and retailers to grow, use and sell fresh fruit and vegetables;
- reducing incentives for the food industry to continue or increase production of processed foods containing high levels of saturated fats, trans-fats, free sugars and salt/sodium;
- encouraging reformulation of food products to reduce the contents of saturated fats, trans-fats, free sugars and salt/sodium, with the goal of eliminating industrially-produced trans-fats;
- implementing the WHO recommendations on the marketing of foods and non-alcoholic beverages to children;
- establishing standards to foster healthy dietary practices through ensuring the availability of healthy, nutritious, safe and affordable foods in pre-schools, schools, other public institutions and the workplace;
- exploring regulatory and voluntary instruments (e.g. marketing regulations and nutrition labelling policies), and economic incentives or disincentives (e.g. the addition of front-of-pack labelling to facilitate consumer understanding; and
- providing nutrition and dietary counselling at primary health-care facilities.
- Promoting appropriate infant and young child feeding practices through:
- implementing the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and subsequent relevant World Health Assembly resolutions;
- implementing policies and practices to promote protection of working mothers; and
- promoting, protecting and supporting breastfeeding in health services and the community, including through the Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative.
Defining "Healthy Diets": A Broader Perspective
The aim of this chapter is to propose a definition of “healthy diets” and provide related evidence, thus permitting the alignment of terminology for the Food Systems Summit and beyond.
Diets are combinations of foods and beverages (referred to as foods hereafter, for simplicity) consumed by individuals. However, the specific combination of foods that make up healthy diets is context-specific and depends on many cultural, economic, and other factors. We provide a definition and overview of approaches that have been used to translate this into food-based recommendations. We also provide a brief review highlighting evidence, gaps and controversies related to defining healthy diets. The evidence for potential solutions to making healthy diets more available, affordable, and their production environmentally sustainable is the subject of much literature, and is not discussed here in detail.
A healthy diet is health-promoting and disease-preventing.
Approaches to Translating a Healthy Diet into Specific Food-Based Recommendations
Moving beyond the available broad definitions so as to operationalize what constitutes a healthy diet has been a source of debate within the nutrition community for decades. Innumerable definitions exist, with many similarities and several contradictions emerging over time (Cena and Calder 2020). In part, the contradictions arise from diversity in the underlying health issues that the diets were intended to address. Approaches to operationalizing the broad definitions and a move toward specific food-based recommendations have typically used one of three approaches:
- observing existing dietary patterns associated with a lower prevalence of specific diseases;
- perspective approaches based on evidence related to one or several outcomes; and
- indicative approaches providing evidence-based guidance to be adapted to a specific context.