DGIs focus on a food-based approach for attaining optimal nutrition and represent the recommended amounts of nutrients that should be consumed through food to ensure a balanced diet.

• A balanced diet should provide not more than 45% calories from cereals, and millets and up to 15% of calories from pulses, beans and meat and the rest from nuts, vegetables, fruits, and milk.

Need for DGIs

• Dual burden of malnutrition: Significant proportion of children suffers from impaired nutritional status creating dual burden of undernutrition and overweight/ obesity.
• Disease burden: Estimates show that 56.4% of the total disease burden in India is due to unhealthy diets.
•  Changing Dietary preferences: Owing to aggressive advertising and marketing of unhealthy, highly processed, high-fat, sugar, and salt (HFSS) which can contribute to long-term health issues, including an increase in non-communicable diseases.

Key highlights of the DGIs

• Choose variety of oil seeds, nuts, nutricereals, and legumes to meet daily needs of fats and essential fatty acids.
• Read information on food labels to make informed and healthy food choices.
• Minimize the consumption of HFSS and ultra-processed foods (UPFs).
• Along with balanced diet, be physically active and exercise regularly to keep one physically and mentally fit and promote good health.