Weight Guidelines Drop Allowance for Gains With Age

New dietary guidelines issued Tuesday by the federal government recommend for the first time that adult Americans maintain a single “healthy” weight range over the years, eliminating allowances for weight gain as they age.

The guidelines also place more emphasis on physical exercise, urging at least a 30-minute moderate workout daily, and continue to stress the consumption of less fat and more grains, fruits and vegetables. Moderate alcohol intake--one drink a day for women and two for men--is also acceptable, the recommendations said.

“The health risks due to excess weight appear to be the same for older as for younger adults,” the guidelines said in explaining the change in weight recommendations.

“The scales are not lying: When at least one-third of all adults and one-quarter of all children are overweight, we have a weight problem in America,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

The guidelines include weight ranges for specific heights, taking into account that individuals have different amounts of muscle and bone as well as body fat. They no longer include the factor of age. In past years, some allowances were made for weight gain with age, recognizing that most people typically become heavier as they become older.

For example, an acceptable weight range for a 6-foot man or woman is roughly 140 to 180 pounds. Up to about 210 pounds is considered moderately overweight, and above that, severely overweight.

A 5-foot-6 man or woman would be considered at a healthy weight from about 120 to 155 pounds.

The recommendations, first released in 1980, are issued every five years jointly by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. They provide the basis for federal nutrition policy and nutrition education. They were released at a joint press conference by Shalala and Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

There has been an increasing push by the federal government to provide more nutrition information to consumers, particularly as scientific evidence has mounted that links dietary factors to the development of diseases, such as heart attacks, stroke, diabetes and certain cancers. An example is the standard informational food labels drafted by the Food and Drug Administration and now appearing on all food products.

Glickman said that the administration would continue working to use the dietary guidelines in school meal programs and other federal nutrition programs.

An estimated 300,000 deaths each year are related to diseases caused by poor diet and lack of physical activity, according to federal health officials. Among preventable causes, only smoking is related to more deaths in the United States, they said.

The guidelines suggest such exercises as brisk walking (3 to 4 mph), racket sports, swimming, cycling, dancing and home activities, such as cleaning, repairs, painting and gardening.

For the first time, the guidelines give a blessing to vegetarian diets but warn that vegetarians should be sure to include essential nutrients usually obtained from meat, such as iron, zinc and B vitamins.

The guidelines stress that fat consumption should be no more than 30% of an individual’s total dietary calories. The upper limit for any person would depend on his or her needs.

For example, at 2,000 calories per day, the suggested upper limit of calories from fat is about 600. Food labels now contain information on a product’s total fat calories.

The guidelines recommend that children older than 2 gradually adopt the same diet as adults so that, by age 5, they are eating no more than 30% of calories from fat.

“As they begin to consume fewer calories from fat, children should replace these calories by eating more grain products, fruits, vegetables, and low-fat milk products or other calcium-rich foods, and beans, lean meat, poultry, fish or other protein-rich food,” the guidelines said.

The guidelines were praised by the nutrition and food groups, such as the Grocery Manufacturers of America, the American Institute of Nutrition, the American Society for Clinical Nutrition and the American Dietetic Assn.

“This is a great opportunity for nutrition and health professionals to show people just how easy it is to make good nutrition choices,” said Doris Derelian, a registered dietitian who is president of the 66,500-member American Dietetic Assn.

The guidelines “are the bottom line--the cornerstone for the recommendations made by health and nutrition professionals.”

But officials at the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that the recommendations still do not go far enough, particularly in levels of fat consumption.

“Considering America’s high rates of heart disease and obesity, those levels should have been significantly lower,” said Michael Jacobson, executive director. “And concerns about refined sugar, which dilutes the nutritional quality of millions of Americans’ diets, were largely dismissed.”