At the 1995 status review of the Healthy People 2000 nutrition objectives, progress was reported in several areas. These include dietary fat consumption, calcium intake, use of nutrition label information, incidence of coronary and stroke mortalities and blood pressure and cholesterol levels. However, a lack of progress was reported in the incidence of overweight in both men and women. Physicians can help their older patients achieve better health by providing assessments for under- or over-nutrition and education in age-appropriate dietary practices.