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Designing the Food Guide Pyramid (January 3, 2003, Two)

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Program Summary

Have you seen the food pyramid? Next to the tomb of Tutankhamun? No, no, on the side of the cereal box. The food guide pyramid, introduced in 1992 by the Department of Agriculture to replace the four food groups, is supposed to tell us graphically how much of what foods to eat on a daily basis. Instead, it has become a subject of controversy, both from a design perspective and a content standpoint.

A graphic designer on today’s show objects to the pyramid’s “gloomy” colors and “dreadful” drawings, and he feels that the choice of a pyramid to represent a nutritional guide is a mistake. It’s too confusing. Are the important categories on the bottom or the top? How much is a serving? Where does coffee fit in to the scheme? Is it a fruit, a grain, or what? And what’s worse is that a pyramid is a tomb, not a cheerful image for a healthy diet.

Nutritionists and doctors take issue with the pyramid’s recommendations. Nutritional studies conducted in the last few years have actually proven some of it wrong, such as the emphasis on starchy foods in the diet, putting potatoes in the vegetable group, and the idea that fat is categorically bad. Another of Ira’s guests, a professor of medicine, believes that following the current food guide pyramid leads to eating badly and actually contributes to increases in obesity and illness. He has come up with a pyramid that he feels more closely represents the diet that we should be following. His pyramid is built not on food, but rather physical activity and weight control, then layers of healthy carbohydrates and fats, fruits and vegetables, and protein. Now if only he could add a layer of chocolate…

Guests

Marion Nestle, Ph.D., MPH, professor and chair of the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University in New York City

Walter Willett, M.D., chairman of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston

Stephen Doyle, principal and creative director of Doyle Partners in New York City

Books Discussed

Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, University of California Press, 2002.

Willet, Walter C. Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating, Fireside, 2001.

Related Links and Resources

Harvard Public Health NOW, August 24, 2001: “Nutrition Book Author Willett Rebuilds USDA Food Pyramid”

Harvard School of Public Health, November 21, 2002: “New Alternative to USDA Dietary Guidelines Nearly Twice as Effective in Reducing Risk for Major Chronic Disease”

Nurses' Health Study at Brigham and Women's Hospital

National Nutrition Summit

U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “On the Teen Scene: Food Label Makes Good Eating Easier”

For Discussion:

• What do you think about the design of the food pyramid? Do you think it persuades people to eat properly?
• What shape do you think would be better?
• Do you think you eat a healthy diet? Based on the new pyramid guide, how do you think you could improve?
• Should everyone follow the same pyramid?

Activities

Here is a link to graphics of the current food guide pyramid and Walter Willet’s Healthy Eating Pyramid, as discussed on the show.

Peas and Q’s. For an explanation and graphics of the current food pyramid guide, go to The Food Guide Pyramid at KidsHealth.

Food for thought. For a different angle on healthy eating, kids should visit The Human Brain Nutrition and the Brain-Food Pyramid at the Franklin Institute Online. It’s heavy on text and light on graphics and interaction, but it’s really interesting to learn how different components of food directly affect brain health and function. Try constructing a map of the brain that places components in the areas they affect.

You are what you eat. Have students evaluate their diets at the Pacific Science Center’s Nutrition Café, where they enter the food they may typically eat in a day and receive personalized nutrition reports.

Turn over a new leaf. NPR’s Is the Food Pyramid Obsolete? elucidates the suggested changes to the pyramid and the scientific reasoning behind them. After studying the revised pyramid, have students return to Nutrition Café and design a diet that incorporates the changes. These can be compared to their previous nutrition reports.

Draw! Based on what they’ve learned about the revised recommendations, divide the class into groups and ask the groups to design a better food guide. They can use a shape, a chart, or whatever they think would be more effective than a pyramid.

Use the search box below to perform a Google search within any of the specifc sites or general domains mentioned in this Activities section.

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