Officials Roll Out New Food Pyramid

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 propective: 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.

In the proposed food pyramid, servings are defined as cups or ounces, and in some cases even more specific details are given. For example: