FED:Healthy eating heads off disease tsunami

AAP General News (Australia)
12-12-2011
FED:Healthy eating heads off disease tsunami

(EDS: Not to go online until 0001 AEDT Tuesday, Dec 13, 2011. Newspapers can publish Tuesday.)



CANBERRA, Dec 13 AAP - Your parents were right - you need to eat your vegies.

That's one of the recommendations of the new Australian Dietary Guidelines released on Tuesday.

The report, released by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), says
Australians need to eat plenty of vegetables as well as fruit, grain and lean meat and
poultry.

The consequences of not eating a healthy diet are disastrous, warned the chair of the
guidelines working committee, Dr Amanda Lee.

"If we do not start to radically improve our diet we are going to see a tsunami of
poor health consequences associated with poor diet hit our public health system," Dr Lee
told reporters.

"A third of chronic diseases are entirely preventable by dietary improvement, so there's
a huge challenge for all of us to try to improve our diet."

Dr Lee said Australians need to double the amount of vegetables and fruit, as well
as consume more wholegrain cereals, low fat milk, yoghurt and cheese, lean poultry, fish
and seafood.

Men need to eat about 20 per cent less red meat.

Dr Lee said the guidelines have been based on a wide body of evidence, and not just
on a few individual papers.

"The NHMRC reviewed systematically and rigorously the body of scientific evidence related
to food, diet and health outcomes," she said.

"The results confirm previous advice but this is now underpinned by stronger scientific
evidence."

The deputy chair of the guidelines working committee Professor Colin Binns said the
new guidelines are the result of three years of planning.

"More effort has been put into updating the science in this set of guidelines than
any previous nutrition documents," Prof Binns said.

The report has also recommended that people stay physically active to avoid putting on weight.

It has warned that food needs to be prepared and stored correctly.

Public comments on the paper are open until February 29, 2012.

AAP ms/pjo/jnb

KEYWORD: DIET EMBARGOED (WITH FACTBOX)

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