The Importance of The Food Guide Pyramid

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The Importance of The Food Guide Pyramid

The food guide pyramid plays an important role in the health education of the majority of people in the United States. It is meant to guide the general healthy public in how to eat healthy to stay healthy. It includes a wide variety of foods to provide a healthy range of nutrients that are needed daily. The food guide pyramid is an excellent way to educate the public on how to eat healthy. The new food guide pyramid also includes exercise. This is a way to universally educate people. The food guide pyramid is not a way to cure anything or solve any immediate problems; it is guidelines that help people to understand what they should be eating. The food guide pyramid is meant for people without special health circumstances ages 2 and up. It is a way to promote variety in a diet and to help people understand what is good for them. The food guide pyramid includes foods that do not promote chronic diseases. Foods that cause chronic diseases are avoided in the food guide pyramid. As more research is done the food guide pyramid progresses with it. The dietary guidelines are updated every 5 years; these are what provide all of the information for the food guide pyramid. From the first food guide pyramid, it has improved greatly with the research that has been done. It definitely progresses along with the most up to date information that is available. This is what is best for the public (Carole Davis).

The food guide pyramid today is wisely known in the United States and is taught in school as guidelines for healthy eating, and healthy lifestyle. The first guidelines for a healthy diet were published in the USDA’s Framers Bulletin in 1894. W.O. Atwater was the primary researcher in this subject and had written these guidelines. The first guidelines suggested that the diets for American males consisted of protein, carbohydrate, fats, and “mineral matter”. Atwater also talked of overeating being evil. (Davis and Saltos, 1999). This is interesting because today, this is what professionals say should be avoided. The first food guide for children “Food for Young Children” came out in 1916 from the USDA. This guide included five food groups, milk and meat, cereals, vegetables, and fruits, fats and fatty foods, and sugars and sugary food. (Davis and Saltos, 1999) Then there was a guide published in 1917 for the general publi...

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...uide pyramid is a way to educate the public on their best interest, so they can be healthy. The food guide pyramid is made not to harm others but to benefit them. The food guide pyramid is the best for the most people. This promotes each individuals own interests.

Works Cited:

Rachels, James. © 2003 The Elements of Moral Philosophy McGraw Hill pgs. 76-84, 174

Carole Davis and Etta Saltos, Dietary Recommendations and How They Have Changed Over Time, 1999, from Recommendations Over Time • AIB-750 USDA

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib750/aib750b.pdf

Ellis, Lisa. Healthy Lifestyle Nutrition. www.HLN.com

USDA's new Food Guide Pyramid shockingly removes recommendation that people should limit consumption of added sugars, www.NewsTarget.com

Adams, Mike. Corruption exposed: drug companies gave grants, consulting fees to panelists who issued new cholesterol guidelines that are driving demand for statins. Posted Jul 15, 2004 PT by the Health Ranger, www.NewsTarget.com

Barnard, Neil M.D., Racial Bias in Food Guidelines, Magazine: Physician committee for responsible medicine. Autumn 1997. Volume VI, number 4.

Eure, Marian. New Food Pyramid. www.health.about.com

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