Food-based dietary guidelines have the objective of favoring nutrition education using terms which are understandable, simple and clear for most consumers, indicating the necessary modifications in food patterns. This work was conducted with the aim of presenting a review of the literature on developing dietary guidelines in many countries. In order to accomplish this, a bibliographical survey of the period from 1991 to 2006 of Medline and Lilacs databases was performed using "food guide", "dietary guideline" and "development of dietary guideline" as keywords with the intention of carrying out an in-depth research of the following items: preparation, evaluation, implementation and methodological issues related to their development. Since 1996, orientations given by the Food and Nutrition Board/World Health Organization have been published for preparation of dietary guidelines and many countries developed them in accordance to these recommendations, despite facing numerous methodological issues. After dietary guidelines are developed, the biggest challenge is to implement and evaluate them, and among the strategies for their dissemination, the development of nutrition education tools such as graphs, folders, printed leaflets and posters is pointed out. Regarding the assessment of food guides, few countries performed researches that focused on consumer knowledge and understanding. We concluded that the process of developing dietary guidelines is very complex and it is necessary to plan their implementation and evaluation, not only regarding their understanding by consumers but also their impact on population health.
Food and nutrition education; Food guide; Nutrition, public health