Final answer:
The amount of a vitamin that meets about 98% of the population's need is called the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). The Percent Daily Values on nutrition labels indicate how much a serving of food contributes to the daily diet based on a 2,000 calorie diet, with 5% or less being low and 20% or more being high in a nutrient.
Step-by-step explanation:
The amount of a vitamin that meets about 98% of the population's need for the nutrient is referred to as the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for the vitamin.
The RDA is a value used by health professionals to evaluate the quality of people's diets and represents the average daily dietary intake level sufficient to meet the nutrient requirements of nearly all (97–98%) healthy individuals in a group.
It is derived from the Estimated Average Requirement (EAR), which is the intake level estimated to meet the requirement of 50% of the population.
When looking at the Percent Daily Values (% DV) on a nutrition label, it's helpful to know that a food is considered low in a nutrient if it contains 5% or less of the DV, and high in a nutrient if it contains 20% or more of the DV.
These benchmarks are based on a 2,000 calorie diet and can be adjusted to fit individual dietary needs, which may vary by age, gender, health status, and activity level.