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Officials Roll Out New Food Pyramid
Officials Roll Out New Food Pyramid -- Posted by Gumbo on 11-04-04 17:27
Officials Roll Out New Food Pyramid
Personalized Diet Recommendations Should Help With Weight Loss, Experts Say
By Peggy Peck
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD
on Thursday, September 11, 2003
Sept. 11, 2003 -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture is unveiling its
proposed new food pyramid today, attempting to help in the battle of the
bulge by tailoring recommendations to individual lifestyles.
The USDA is asking for input from both ordinary Americans and nutrition
experts before it issues a final version, expected sometime next year.
The proposed food pyramid recommendations suggest not only how many servings
of fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats are needed for a healthy diet, but
also how much you should be eating based on your age and lifestyle.
Light Walker to Heavy Runner
If you are a 45-year-old who walks "a little" -- for example, a mile and
half to 3 miles a day at a leisurely pace, a 2,000-calorie diet is
recommended, while the same-age woman who is a true couch potato should cut
back to 1,800 calories. But the "it's-lunch-so-I'm-on-the-treadmill"
45-year-old woman can bump up her intake to 2,200 calories.
Just to put this in prospective: if any of these women sit down to a typical
big skillet breakfast -- cheese omelet, potatoes, toast, juice, and
coffee -- she will have already used up all of her daily calorie allotment,
says Alice Lichtenstein, DSc, Director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition
Research Program, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston.
Lichtenstein tells WebMD that she is concerned that this new food pyramid
might confuse the general public even more.
For example, the new food pyramid includes a category-by-category breakdown
for 12 different diets, ranging from 1,000 to 3,200 calories as well as a
separate chart to determine which calorie intake is recommended for your
particular lifestyle. According to the lifestyle chart, only very active
teenage boys should consume 3,200 calories, while active teenage girls --
meaning exercise that is the equivalent to walking 3 to 4 miles daily at a
brisk pace -- can consume 2,400 calories.
Say Goodbye to Servings
One change that is getting positive reviews is a move to make the food
pyramid more user-friendly by moving away from the nebulous "serving"
designation to more precise cup or ounce designations.
Samantha Heller, MS, RD, senior clinical nutritionist at NYU Medical Center
in New York, tells WebMD that this is a significant improvement.
"Frankly, most people don't know what it means when you say two or three
servings. For example, I tell my patients that a half an English muffin is
one serving of grain, so if we are recommending six servings of grain each
day, that means they have five servings left. If they eat the whole English
muffin, they have four servings left," she says.
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