Hi there. This is Monica Reinagle, The Nutrition Diva,

here with a special edition of my quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

This week the US government unveiled the 2010 dietary

guidelines for Americans. Of course it's already 2011 so they are late in

arriving. But seeing as the guidelines are only revised every five years,

these are the marching orders we'll be living with for the next few years.

So how good are the new guidelines?

Is getting on board with the 2010 dietary guidelines going to make Americans any healthier.

And now let's take a closer look at what advice the government has to offer.

The guidelines, which are about 100 pages pages long are detailed and comprehensive and there's plenty to discuss.

But most people are never going to hear anything beyond the key recommendations and the selected messages that were provided this morning to the press.

So in this quick response, I'm going to focus on those.

Recommendation number one was to eat less and move more.

More than ever before, the new guidelines are focused on tackling obesity and its associated costs and consequences.

So before they even get into the details of what we should and shouldn't be eating, the guidelines emphasize they need to balance calories in with calories out.

And for most Americans, that boils down to eating less. The guidelines also stress the need to move more to increase

our physical activity and decrease what they call screen time or the number of

hours we and our kids log in front of televisions, computers, games, and other electronic

devices.

There's nothing particularly new about the Eat Less Move More advice.

However, it is notable that this is what the government chose to single out as the

number one take-home message.

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