Food plate replaces food pyramid

We just celebrated the 18-month anniversary of the "Food Plate" replacing the antiquated and less than useful food pyramid. What's that? You hadn't heard? I'm not surprised. It isn't the kind of thing that gets national attention and it would have been easy for it to slip through even newshound fingers last summer.

But with childhood obesity more than tripling over the last 30 years, this is the kind of guidance that may help make a difference. It's part of First Lady Michelle Obama's priority on national healthy eating, and I think it's a winner. I'm excited that President Obama won a second term in the White House for a lot of reasons, and one of them is that Michelle Obama can continue her push for healthy eating in schools around the country.

ChooseMyPlate

This new graphic is a radical departure from the food pyramid I (and probably you) got brought up with. The first pyramid was created in 1988, the first comprehensive food guide in 1992, and revamped from horizontal blocks to those strange vertical slices in 2005. What about before that? The very first "Recommended Daily Allowances" from the government came out in 1941, and the categories of milk, meats, fruit and vegetables, and grains have largely stayed the same, even in this new incarnation as the food plate.

The major issue with both versions of the pyramid was that it was hard to translate what they were showing in the graphic into food choices. Why a pyramid? Is the top more important? Or the other way around?

The biggest plus about the new plate graphic is that it is easy to say, "Oh, OK. I'll split up my plate that way." Being able to visualize the divisions means people can easily picture themselves with a plate that looks that way. There are also great guidelines and activities for children at ChooseMyPlate.gov. Even if we don't start changing immediately, it's still something that will get embedded in the minds of children and spring into action when they get older. I still picture, for better or worse, the food pyramid from when I was a kid.

Image courtesy of Huffington Post article