First Lady, Agriculture Secretary Launch MyPlate Icon as a New Reminder to Help Consumers to Make Healthier Food Choices

WASHINGTON, June 2, 2011 – First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today unveiled the federal government’s new food icon, MyPlate, to serve as a reminder to help consumers make healthier food choices. MyPlate is a new generation icon with the intent to prompt consumers to think about building a healthy plate at meal times and to seek more information to help them do that by going to www.ChooseMyPlate.gov. The new MyPlate icon emphasizes the fruit, vegetable, grains, protein and dairy food groups.

The new healthful eating graphic for consumers.

“This is a quick, simple reminder for all of us to be more mindful of the foods that we’re eating and as a mom, I can already tell how much this is going to help parents across the country,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “When mom or dad comes home from a long day of work, we’re already asked to be a chef, a referee, a cleaning crew. So it’s tough to be a nutritionist, too. But we do have time to take a look at our kids’ plates. As long as they’re half full of fruits and vegetables, and paired with lean proteins, whole grains and low-fat dairy, we’re golden. That’s how easy it is.”

“With so many food options available to consumers, it is often difficult to determine the best foods to put on our plates when building a healthy meal,” said Secretary Vilsack. “MyPlate is an uncomplicated symbol to help remind people to think about their food choices in order to lead healthier lifestyles. This effort is about more than just giving information, it is a matter of making people understand there are options and practical ways to apply them to their daily lives.”

Originally identified in the Child Obesity Task Force report which noted that simple, actionable advice for consumers is needed, MyPlate will replace the MyPyramid image as the government’s primary food group symbol as an easy-to-understand visual cue to help consumers adopt healthy eating habits consistent with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. MyPyramid will remain available to interested health professionals and nutrition educators in a special section of the new website.

ChooseMyPlate.gov provides practical information to individuals, health professionals, nutrition educators, and the food industry to help consumers build healthier diets with resources and tools for dietary assessment, nutrition education, and other user-friendly nutrition information. As Americans are experiencing epidemic rates of overweight and obesity, the online resources and tools can empower people to make healthier food choices for themselves, their families, and their children. Later this year, USDA will unveil an exciting “go-to” online tool that consumers can use to personalize and manage their dietary and physical activity choices.

Over the next several years, USDA will work with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’sMove! initiative and public and private partners to promote MyPlate and ChooseMyPlate.gov as well as the supporting nutrition messages and “how-to” resources.

The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, launched in January of this year, form the basis of the federal government’s nutrition education programs, federal nutrition assistance programs, and dietary advice provided by health and nutrition professionals.

The Guidelines messages include:

Balance Calories

• Enjoy your food, but eat less.

• Avoid oversized portions.

Foods to Increase

• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.

• Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.

• Make at least half your grains whole grains.

Foods to Reduce

• Compare sodium (salt) in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals, and choose foods with lower numbers.

• Drink water instead of sugary drinks.

Coupled with these tested, actionable messages will be the “how-tos” for consumer behavior change. A multi-year campaign calendar will focus on one action-prompting message at a time starting with “Make Half Your Plate Fruits and Vegetables.”

“What we have learned over the years is that consumers are bombarded by so many nutrition messages that it makes it difficult to focus on changes that are necessary to improve their diet,” said Secretary Vilsack. “This new campaign calendar will help unify the public and private sectors to coordinate efforts and highlight one desired change for consumers at a time.”

As part of this new initiative, USDA wants to see how consumers are putting MyPlate in to action by encouraging consumers to take a photo of their plates and share on Twitter with the hash-tag #MyPlate. USDA also wants to see where and when consumers think about healthy eating. Take the Plate [http://www.choosemyplate.gov/global_nav/media_resources.html] and snap a photograph with MyPlate to share with our USDA Flickr Photo Group [http://www.flickr.com/people/usdagov/].

For more information, visit www.ChooseMyPlate.gov.

One Step Closer to Curbing Childhood Obesity?

In light of Michelle Obama’s campaign targeting childhood obesity, sixteen of the top U.S. food and beverage manufacturers have promised to slash 1.5 trillion calories from their products by 2015. 

With nearly 1 out of every 3 children in the U.S. considered overweight or obese, this agreement between the Partnership for a Healthier America and the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (an alliance of more than 80 industry companies), comes at a critical point in our nation’s history.

So what exactly does this pledge mean for the American food system?

Household retailers including General Mills,  Kraft, Hershey, Kellogg, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, ConAgra Foods, and Campbell’s have all promised to introduce lower-calorie foods, reconfigure current recipes, and reduce portion sizes in order to meet their preliminary goal to get rid of 1 trillion (of the 1.5 trillion) calories from their products by 2012.

In the past, we’ve seen food manufacturers take advantage of similar situations — vowing to improve the quality of their products, but for the purposes of generating more publicity rather than addressing the real problem.  Reduced-fat peanut butter for example, removes heart-healthy monounsaturated fats and replaces them with added sugars and carbohydrates.  Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, subbing one undesirable ingredient with another, and then slapping health claims on food packaging, has done little to curb the obesity epidemic.

This time around, however, measures are being taken to ensure companies are held accountable for their promises.  

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, an independent health research institute, has been appointed to evaluate the calorie consumption of adolescents in response to these changes.  Mrs. Obama has also publicly addressed the importance of these businesses to redirect their efforts from creative child marketing, and instead focus on increasing the nutrients found in these foods.

So what do you think? Will real changes be made with this new pledge, or will history merely repeat itself?