“Healthy” may be one of the most persuasive words on a food package. It is also one of the most complicated. To a shopper moving quickly through a supermarket, the word can sound almost self-explanatory. A product labeled healthy should, presumably, be good for you. But on an FDA-regulated food label, “healthy” is not merely an adjective. It is a voluntary nutrient content claim, which means a product must satisfy federal criteria before a manufacturer can use it in that way.
The difficulty is that our understanding of healthy eating has changed considerably since those criteria were first established in 1994.
Under the old definition, the FDA focused heavily on individual nutrients. Foods generally had to stay below limits for total fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium while providing at least 10 percent of the Daily Value of vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, iron, protein or fiber. That reflected the nutrition priorities of its time, when reducing dietary fat — including total fat — occupied a central place in public-health advice.
The result, viewed through the lens of today's nutrition science, could be peculiar. A highly sweetened breakfast cereal fortified with vitamins and minerals could qualify as “healthy.” So could highly sweetened yogurt, fortified white bread without whole grains and some sugary fruit snacks. Meanwhile, foods naturally high in fat, including nuts and seeds, salmon and olive oil, could have difficulty meeting the old criteria.
In December 2024, the FDA rewrote the definition.
The new approach shifts attention away from whether a food can check enough individual nutrient boxes and toward whether it contributes meaningful amounts of the food groups that make up a healthy dietary pattern. To qualify, most products must contain a specified amount from at least one recommended food group — such as vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy or protein foods — while remaining within limits for added sugars, saturated fat and sodium.
That seemingly technical change produces a very different picture of what “healthy” looks like.
Avocados can qualify. So can eggs, nuts and seeds, salmon and other higher-fat fish, and 100 percent olive oil. Fresh fruits and vegetables qualify, as do many frozen and canned versions. At the same time, products such as highly sweetened cereals and yogurts that could satisfy the old rules no longer necessarily make the cut.
It is a striking example of how nutrition policy has evolved. Fat itself is no longer treated as the central problem; the type and source of fat matter. Added sugars now receive explicit attention. And rather than allowing fortification alone to transform a highly refined product into something that qualifies as healthy, the new criteria place greater weight on the food itself.
But the definition may not be finished. In its 2026 priorities, the FDA says it will assess whether the recently updated “healthy” criteria need further changes to align with the 2025–2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The agency's new guidance agenda also includes questions and answers about use of the claim and continues work on a possible standardized symbol that manufacturers could place on packages meeting the criteria.
That continuing revision points to a larger problem with trying to compress nutrition science into a single word. “Healthy” is enormously useful in marketing precisely because it simplifies. A shopper does not have to study the ingredient list, examine the Nutrition Facts panel or consider how the food fits into the rest of the diet. The word appears to have done that work already. But no federal definition can determine whether a particular food is healthy for a particular person, nor can a label describe an entire diet. A food can meet the FDA's criteria and still be only one part of what someone eats; a food without the claim is not automatically unhealthy. The regulation determines when manufacturers may use a specific label claim. It does not divide the supermarket into foods people should and should not eat.
That distinction is easy to lose on the front of a package. Still, the evolution of the definition tells an important story. In 1994, a fortified sugary cereal could look better under the federal criteria than an avocado or a bottle of olive oil. Three decades later, the FDA's definition has moved closer to evaluating foods as foods rather than simply as collections of nutrients.
And now the agency is looking at the word again. Perhaps that is inevitable. “Healthy” sounds like a permanent category. Nutrition science has repeatedly shown that it is anything but.
Official sources: FDA: Use of the “Healthy” Claim on Food Labeling · FDA Human Foods Program 2026 Priority Deliverables · FDA 2026 Human Foods Program Guidance Agenda
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