The U.S. is currently in an obesity epidemic. 65 percent of adults ages 20 to 74 are overweight, with nearly half of that group morbidly obese. Obesity contributes to over 300,000 deaths a year in the United States and about one-third of all cancer deaths are attributable to poor diet. Four of the top ten causes of death in the United States — heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes — are also associated with obesity. Diet-related health conditions cost tax payers over $250 billion annually in medical costs and lost productivity. And it is getting worse and worse. Well, in a concerted effort to try and better educate consumers, the FDA (along with Porter Novelli) just redesigned our food pyramid. It cost $2.5 million dollars.
In an effort to make nutrition information available to consumers, new labeling regulations mandated by the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) originally went into effect in the United States in May 1994. It made package designers deliriously happy and very, very busy—as every single package in U.S. supermarkets had to have these new labels put in place—and thus they all had to be redesigned. Every single one.
The original 1990 law required disclosure of the nutritional content of foods on a standardized label. This of course was based on our first food pyramid.
The subsequent labels were brilliantly designed by Burkey Belser. These regulations updated the list of nutrients that appeared on the nutritional facts panel, standardizing serving sizes, defining nutrient content claims, ultimately providing a mechanism for evaluating health claims. Back in 1994, the change in the labels occurred with less confusion than many had predicted and, according to surveys, accomplished its main goal — a better-informed consumer — because the information was simply more accessible.
Believe it or not, prior to implementation of the NLEA, nutritional information was provided on a voluntary basis by food manufacturers. Government regulations related to nutrient content and health claims were much less stringent. The Food and Drug Administration estimated that the NLEA would cost industry $1.4 billion to $2.3 billion and the government $163 million over the next 20 years, beginning in 1994.
Back then, the objective of the NLEA was to provide consistent, understandable, and usable labels that would help consumers choose healthier foods. Clearly this didn’t work. At the time, the main concern was whether nutritional labels would affect consumer choice and improve nutrient intake and diet quality among Americans. Well, we don’t need any research to verify that it, quite frankly hasn’t happened. All you need to do is read Fast Food Nation or watch the documentary Super Size Me to see for yourself what a frightening state of fat we are truly in.
Well, as of Tuesday, the old pyramid (and soon to be labels) is history. This from the New York Times: “The old food pyramid was turned on its side and outfitted with stairs on Tuesday, as the federal government unveiled its latest effort to offer instant nutrition advice to Americans. The new program, “MyPyramid,” was hailed by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns as a customized, interactive food guidance system. “MyPyramid is about the ability of Americans to personalize their approach when choosing a healthier lifestyle that balances nutrition and exercise,” Mr. Johanns said at a news conference. “Many Americans can dramatically improve their overall health by making modest improvements to their diets and by incorporating regular physical activity into their daily lives.”
The Agriculture Department says that 80 percent of Americans recognized the (old) pyramid. But Mr. Johanns acknowledged that few followed its recommendations.
“It became clear,” Mr. Johanns said, “that we needed to do a much better job of communicating the nutrition messages so that Americans could understand how to begin making positive changes in their lifestyles. And, of course, another thing is very obvious: the science has evolved since the original label was created, with additional research on issues including the nutritional content of foods and food consumption patterns.”
Like its predecessor, the revised pyramid and its web site, are based on the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, published in January by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. This time, the pyramid is a series of vertical color bands of varying widths. The bands of fruits and vegetables combined take up the most space, followed by grains, with the narrowest bands still belonging to fats, oils and sugars. Also new is the stick figure walking up the left side of the pyramid to match the guide’s slogan: “Steps to a healthier you.”
The new pyramid comes in 12 versions, depending on a person’s activity level and caloric need. “One pyramid does not fit all of us,” Mr. Johanns said, “so we created 12 different ones.”
At the news conference, Mr. Johanns emphasized moderation and even turned to the fitness celebrity Denise Austin, a member of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, to push the exercise component. But there seem to be only hints about eating less of anything, like the suggestion to “know the limits on fats, sugars and salt.”
“The pyramid is incredible to me,” said Dr. Carlos Arturo Camargo Jr., an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and a member of the dietary guidelines advisory committee. “The whole concept of replacing unhealthy food with healthy food is very hard to find. I’m pretty skeptical this graphic is going to produce many healthy people except for some highly motivated ones.”
In an early draft of the pyramid by the international marketing firm Porter Novelli, which was hired to create a suitable symbol (for $2.5 million), the pinnacle was topped by the word “occasionally” for foods like pastries; “daily” was the word for foods at the base, like whole-wheat bread.
Porter Novelli referred all calls to the Agriculture Department, which would not comment on the disappearance of this information, saying it was not the agency’s pyramid. (And frankly, who could blame them for that???)
The goal of the pyramid program was to condense the 70-page Dietary Guidelines into a graphic that would be useful to the public; the Web site was designed to help consumers personalize the guidelines. To learn exactly how many cups of vegetables the government recommends, for example, consumers must submit their age, sex and level of daily exercise to the web site.
But the Agriculture Department has no budget to promote the Dietary Guidelines or the pyramid. Instead, it plans to rely on marketing by the food industry and dissemination of information by nutritionists, physicians and organizations interested in promoting good health. The Grocery Manufacturers of America, for example, plans to use inserts in the Weekly Reader newspapers for children in the fourth through sixth grades. This, quite understandably, should have kids running to the web site for more info.
Alison Kretser, an official with the grocery association, said that using the food industry to get out the message “is the passing of the baton to the food industry to help educate Americans to make small changes to meet the guidelines.”
Apparently, most consumers rate the new labels “much better” or “somewhat better” than the old style. Enhanced readability was a positive comment, as well as better information on the listings for Dietary Fiber and, particularly, Total Fat and Calories from Fat. Younger consumers are more likely to read nutritional labels than are older consumers. A majority of consumers are familiar with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Guide Pyramid, also commonly carried on food labels today, although the degree of adherence by consumers to all its recommendations appears to be rather low.
Hmmmm, I wonder why.
I'm glad to see this addressed. Having done my thesis research on some of the very problems Debbie talks about, I continue following these issues on an almost daily basis.
The pyramid has not, does not, and will not solve the obesity problem. If it enables people to grasp nutrition in a more concrete way, they still have to fight through the morass of images and advertisements seen on a daily basis that direct/persuade them to eat food products instead of making healthy choices. When broccoli or apples have as much real estate in the media as Kraft or Kellogg's, I expect to see cats living with dogs.
I could carry on forever with distaste, but instead, I'm thinking about moving to France where the women (and maybe men) don't get fat or at the very least avoiding the supermarket's interior aisles all together. Until then, I'll wonder what designers can do about this and craft some of my own solutions for submission to the AdCouncil, CDC, FDA, and President's Council on Fitness. Surely, there's plenty of grant money to finance campaigns, websites, educational tools, or information graphics.
On Apr.21.2005 at 10:52 PM