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Feature Articles: Eating Well New food pyramids make balancing diet and activity easierEileen Yager, Communications Officer, Extension & Ag Information, University of Missouri |
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A healthy weight is not just dependant on how much you eat but
also how active you are. The new food pyramid system can help
people take some of the guesswork out of balancing food and
activity, according to a University of Missouri nutrition expert.
MyPyramid -- the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food guidance
system -- is built on 12 calorie levels. Size, age, gender and
activity level determine an individual’s daily calorie needs from
each of the five food groups.
“It’s not some preconceived pie-in-the sky formula,” said Ellen
Schuster, curriculum and training coordinator with the MU
Extension Family Nutrition Education Program. “People can really
get feedback about their diets that is customized and personal.”
Whether you want to shed extra pounds or keep from putting them
on, said MU nutritionist Candy Gabel. “The key is to get adequate
nutrition within your calorie needs, and to balance those calories
with activity.”
Using the MyPryamid Web
site individuals get personalized eating recommendations by
entering their age, gender and daily physical activity. That
personalization will make it easier to meet their nutritional
needs and stay within the total recommended calories, said Gabel,
who also works with extension’s family nutrition programs.
For in-depth information, try MyPyramid Tracker, another Web
site feature, Schuster said. “The MyPyramid tracker provides more
detailed information on your diet quality and physical activity by
comparing one day’s food intake with the current recommendations,”
she said.
Physical activity is important in determining daily calorie
intake. “The more you move, the more you can eat,” she said. “If
people want to add more food to their daily eating, they can by
increasing their activity level.”
MyPyramid is built on the 2005 Dietary Guidelines released
earlier this year. In addition to calling for Americans to be more
active, those guidelines recommend eating more whole grains,
fruits, dark-green and orange vegetables, and low-fat dairy
products, while cutting back on fats, sugars and sodium.
Each of the five food groups ? grains, vegetables, fruits,
milk, and meat and beans ? plus oils are represented by colored,
vertical bands in the new pyramid. For good health, people must
eat foods from all the groups. “We need different amounts of each
food group every day,” Schuster said. “This is represented by the
different widths of the food-group bands. The widest band is
grains; oils are the skinniest band.”
Even within the food groups, people should select foods with
little or no solid fats, added sugars or caloric sweeteners.
“The more nutrient-dense foods are at the bottom of the pyramid
and the high calorie foods are at the top,” Schuster said.
The flexibility and emphasis on moderation makes the food pyramid an easy-to-follow plan. “It gets to where people are,” she said. “The pyramid is something you can live with for the rest of your life.”
Sources:
Ellen Schuster, (573) 882-1933,
schusterer@missouri.edu;
Candy Gabel, (573) 882-9760,
gabelc@missouri.edu
Last update: Wednesday, August 09, 2006
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