Countries in the Southeast Asian region have revised their national food-based dietary guidelines (FBDGs) in response to the public health and nutrition priorities. As a continuous effort to facilitate regional networking, the Southeast Asia Public Health Nutrition Network publishes this review as an update of its previous publication in 2016. This review provides an updated descriptive overview of current FBDGs for the general adult population in Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It summarises and compares commonalities and differences in key dietary messages and visual communication tools across countries. The findings indicate strong regional alignment on core dietary recommendations, including consuming a balanced and varied diet with foods from all food groups, prioritising vegetables and fruits, prioritising minimally processed grains or whole grains starchy staples, practising moderation in protein intake from both animal and plant sources, limiting foods high in fats/oils, sugar and salt, being physically active and maintaining a healthy body weight. Pictorial food guides, such as food pyramids and healthy plates, are widely used, with variations in design that reflect cultural contexts to enhance public understanding. While countries acknowledge the importance of FBDGs, effective dissemination and adoption remain challenging due to limited resources, weak cross-sectoral collaboration, and unsupportive food environments. This review highlights the need for stronger communication strategies, improved understanding of consumer barriers, systematic monitoring and evaluation, inclusion of guidance on away-from-home meals, strengthened multi-stakeholder collaboration across the food supply chain, and enhanced regional collaboration to support effective FBDGs implementation in Southeast Asia.

This review summarises the officially published recommended energy and nutrient intake values in five Southeast Asia (SEA) countries namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The background information, general approaches and references used for setting up recommendations and the recommended intakes levels for energy, protein, fat and carbohydrate, dietary fibre, sugars,14 vitamins and 15 minerals of these countries were tabulated and compared. The recommended intake values show remarkable similarities in terms of approaches and principles taken, as well as references used as the basis for the recommendations development and the application of the recommendations in respective country. There are nevertheless some differences in age groupings, reference height and weight used, as well as the final recommendations of the intake levels for some nutrients, after adjustment to suit local situations. All five countries had provided recommendations in terms of recommended nutrient intakes (RNI) or recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for almost all the nutrients. Due to the limited availability of local data and resources, countries in the region have referred to several references, including those from Food and Agriculture Organization/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) consultation report and recommendations from research organisations in United States and Europe and adapted the values for local uses. Opportunities should be created to enable closer dialogue and collaboration regarding future developments in nutrient recommendations for populations in the region. These could include consideration of establishing more appropriate nutrient recommendations and the call for setting up harmonised approaches to establishing recommended nutrient intake values for the region.