Critics see new food pyramid as abstract art
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April 20, 2005
BY JIM RITTER Health Reporter
The familiar food pyramid is getting a makeover, but some consumers might find
the new design as confusing as the old one.
MyPyramid, unveiled Tuesday, looks like a rainbow, with brightly colored bands
running vertically from the tip to the base.
Each color represents a different food group. The widest band, orange, stands
for grains, which consumers are supposed to eat in relative abundance. The next
widest bands are green and blue, representing vegetables and milk products,
followed in order by fruits (red) and meat and beans (purple). The narrowest
band, yellow, represents oils, which consumers are supposed to eat sparingly.
The bands are widest at the bottom, symbolizing nutritious foods with little or
no solid fats or added sugars. These foods should be selected more often, the
U.S. Agriculture Department said.
On the left side, a stylized stick figure representing physical activity climbs
up pyramid steps.
It's also on the web
If you want detailed dietary advice, skip the new food pyramid graphic and log
on to the government's consumer-friendly Web site, www.MyPyramid.gov.
The site enables you to determine how much of each food group you should eat,
based on your age, sex and activity level.
For example, an active 40-year-old woman should eat about 2,200 calories per
day, including 2 cups of fruits, 3 cups of vegetables, 7 ounces of grains
(equivalent to seven bread slices), 6 ounces of meat and beans, three cups of
fat-free or low-fat milk or equivalent milk products, 6 teaspoons of oils and
290 calories of discretionary foods that are fat-free or low-fat and contain no
added sugars.
The Web site was inundated Tuesday with as many as 1,500 hits per second, and
some Web pages were frozen. But the number of visitors is expected to decline in
coming days, making the site more accessible, a USDA spokesman said.
Food pyramid gets a new look
The Department of Agriculture unveiled a new version of the food guide pyramid
on Tuesday,
adding a colorful reminder to make healthy food choices and increase physical
activity.
Anatomy of the pyramid
Figure represents the importance of daily physical activity.
SOURCE: Department of Agriculture AP
Commercial motive hinted
At first glance, consumers might find the USDA's graphic puzzling, since there's
no explanatory text or pictures, said Sonja Tuitele of Wild Oats Markets, a
chain of natural food supermarkets.
"It's going to be very confusing," Tuitele said. "The pyramid and shape will be
tough for people to understand, at least initially."
The food pyramid symbolizes the government's comprehensive new dietary
guidelines, which were released in January and include 23 recommendations. The
USDA figured it would be too complicated to include all that advice in a
graphic, so it adopted a simplified version that has only five words of text:
"Steps to a Healthier You."
But Penn State University nutritionist Barbara Rolls said a graphic that
contains no specific information "is definitely not very helpful."
And Margo Wootan of the consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest
added: "USDA seems to have bent over backward to avoid upsetting any particular
commodity group or food company by not showing any foods that Americans should
eat less of."
Other experts, however, praised the simple design.
"It doesn't try to jam everything into a graphic that people don't understand,"
said registered dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner of Northwestern Memorial
Hospital's Wellness Institute.
And many food companies are embracing MyPyramid. For example, General Foods said
it will put the graphic on 100 million boxes of Big G cereal brands.
The old food pyramid, introduced in 1992, included the recommended number of
daily servings for each food group. Eighty percent of Americans recognized the
old pyramid, but critics said the design was outdated and confusing, and didn't
relate to varying activity levels.
The government said it tested several designs, including pyramids and other
shapes. A poster-size version of MyPyramid contains detailed information.
Critics have raised questions about Porter Novelli, the firm that helped create
MyPyramid. Porter Novelli has food companies as clients, but both the firm and
the government said the MyPyramid work was handled separately, so there was no
conflict.
Contributing: AP