New International Food Pyramids

Modern Food Pyramid

Notice anything different?

Food pyramids. I remember seeing them all over the place growing up. Was it a 90s thing? an 80s thing? Whatever it was, I hope they bring them back. Especially for today’s campaign to end childhood obesity, it is becoming more and more necessary to educate ourselves and future generations in how to stay healthy when having unhealthy habits is so…attractive.

So back to my question. What’s different? Most people remember traditional food pyramids that have the grains on the big foundation that slowly make its way towards smaller boxes of veggies and meats and finally to a topper of fats, oils, and sweets. But times are changing and so should the way we understand nutrition. A healthy lifestyle is not just what you eat. It’s what you do with your body, too. Activity and exercise, baby. Hence, the stick figure climbing the stairs. For many reasons, we are becoming a more sedentary world and a less active one. And for those that think going to the gym for an hour and being a desk/couch potato for the rest of the day is considered “active,” sorry…but no.

When we eat a BALANCED diet (notice the vertical lines instead of the boxes) with a consistent and BALANCED active lifestyle, we become healthy. The new food pyramid is much more open to different types of lifestyles than before. The old pyramid made it seem a “requirement” to eat meat, for example, otherwise you’ll be leaving a hole in what should have been a model diet. Now, meat can be exempted but re-balanced with other categories. No harm done.

SEMDA (Southeastern Michigan Dietetic Association), though using the old pyramid as a model, has developed many types of pyramids according to nation or culture. Because we all don’t eat the same thing, why follow a generic version? For two years, they have compiled various types of diets from its members and posted them. Unfortunately, after 2004, the pyramids stopped. Nevertheless, I will link them to you here.