Deconstructing The Food Pyramid

by Deidre Woollard, Posted Aug 11th 2005 @ 1:35AM

The Washington Post takes a look at the new food pyramid. Gone is the friendly little diagram with pictures of the food you are supposed to eat. Instead there is an inscrutable rainbow triangle with a stylized guy running up it. The old pyramid was supposed to tell you what to eat but the new one is designed to be a more of a motivational symbol to eat well. The colors represent food groups and the width of the band indicates how much of your diet it should take up. The idea is that the recommendations can be changed on the government website without having to revamp the pyramid every single time. While I like the get-off-your-ass fitness guy running up the side I'm not certain that most people will take the time to learn about what the pyramid colors represent. I miss the little icons of bread, fruits, meat etc. And turning it vertical instead of horizontal doesn't have the same impact. Instead of looking like a structure, like the building blocks of a healthy body, it looks like a logo, which was of course the idea.

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Filed Under: Science
Tags: food+pyramid, FoodPyramid, nutrition