Dietary guidelines need to fatten up.

• Position: Obesity

The Federal government has been called on to drop restrictions on total fat consumption in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans by researchers from the School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University, Medford/Somerville, Mass., and Boston Children's Hospital.

Coauthors Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the School of Nutrition, and David Ludwig, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at BCH, highlight a key, but overlooked, focus of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans Committee (DGAC), a group of independent scientists convened by the Federal government to review current scientific and medical literature on nutrition. For the first time since 1980, the DGAC did not propose restricting total fat consumption in its technical report, released in February. (The report Is not the Dietary Guidelines policy or even a draft. The 2010 Guidelines--the seventh edition since 1980--remain current until the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA jointly release the 2015 Guidelines later this year.)

According to the current dietary guidelines, only up to 35% of daily calories should come from fat. "Placing limits on total fat intake has no basis in science and leads to all sorts of wrong Industry and consumer decisions," maintains Mozaffarian.

"Modern evidence clearly shows that eating more foods rich in healthful fats like nuts, vegetable oils, and fish have protective effects, particularly for cardiovascular disease. Other fat-rich foods, like whole milk and cheese, appear pretty neutral; while many low-fat foods, like low-fat dell meats, fat-free salad dressing, and baked potato chips, are no better and often even worse than full-fat alternatives. It's the food that matters, not its fat content."

For obesity prevention, the DGAC recommends shifting the focus from total fat intake to adoption of a healthier food-based dietary pattern with more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seafood, and beans--and fewer meats, sugars, and refined grains.

"When U.S. guidelines began recommending low-fat diets in 1980, people responded by turning to low-fat or...