The New MyPlate Replaces Healthy Eating Icons of Yesterday

Throughout the years, nutritionists and food experts created charts and pyramids that helped us guide our eating habits. It seems about every five years, the images that guide us change. The latest change to our visual eating guides is the MyPlate food guide just released by the White House and the Department of Agriculture. This seems appropriate, since our first lady's concentration during the past few years has been children's health and exercise.

The first food guide was the simple four food groups. These were grains, fruits and vegetables, meats, and dairy foods. During the '70s, doctors began linking poor eating habits with obesity, diabetes, heart issues and strokes. A fifth food group was added which included sweets, sugars, and fats.

The first true visual icon for food groups was the horizontal pyramid. This was first used in 1992. The pyramid was used because of the notion that the foods that we should eat the most of would be at the bottom, or the broadest part of the pyramid. The bottom layer was grains, the next was fruits and vegetables. Proteins and dairy shared equal space on the third tier, with sugars and fats being the smallest portion. Most of these early pyramids came complete with pictures of foods for each categories.

The food pyramids changed again in the early 2000s. The new pyramids used vertical categories to represent each food group. The width of each stripe represented the importance of each food group. Each food group also had its own color. This new pyramid seemed to add confusion and was difficult to understand.

The Department of Agriculture realized that there needed to be a better visual representation of food groups. This is where the new food icon comes into play. The icon has been named MyPlate. The fifth food group has once again been left out, as it is a negative of food consumption. The plate also breaks vegetables and fruits into their own category. The four food groups shown on MyPlate are proteins, grains, vegetables, and fruits. Dairy has been moved to a glass icon to the right of the plate. The plate represents a pie chart, with the widest pieces being the foods we should eat the most of. The categories are even color-coded. Vegetables are green, fruits are red, proteins are purples, grains are brown and milk is blue.

People will discuss for years whether a simple listing of five foods groups, a pyramid or a plate best represent healthy eating habits. I would tend to agree with those who argue the plate makes more sense. After all, who has ever eaten dinner on a pyramid?

http://www.choosemyplate.gov

http://www.organichealthyeating.com/food-groups.html

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/02/usda-scraps-food-pyramid-for-plate/

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall02/greene/history.htm