by Diane Sagers

CORRESPONDENT

Over the years, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has researched nutrition and published dietary guidelines to help the public eat better. They tried to organize their findings into an understandable, easy-to-follow format. Their findings started with the seven basic food groups, which evolved to the four basic food groups, and then to the food guide pyramid.

Each successive modification was designed to make a simple guideline for choosing well-balanced diets, and the food guide pyramid was the result. It set up a visual representation of the foods that should form the foundation of a healthy diet. The bottom of the pyramid depicts grains as the healthy foundation of a good diet, with fruits and vegetables forming the next layer, then meat and milk, and finally fats and sugars requiring the least amount needed.

The food guide pyramid was based on research. Unfortunately, it didn't work as well as it should have. People took the recommendations at face value and did not necessarily become healthier. As a group, Americans grew fatter and less healthy.

It wasn't the concept of the food requirements that was the problem as much as a need for clarification.

The USDA re-did their research on recommended daily allowances of food and then re-did the pyramid to reflect healthy choices for each group. After all, not all flour-based foods are equal. For example, anyone should see that a serving of cake -- a food in the grain category -- is not as healthy as whole wheat bread.

So the newer version of My Pyramid was developed. It shows the food recommendations, and emphasizes that all foods are important, but that the amounts needed are dependent on age, gender and activity level. A blanket statement was not clear enough.

In 2005, the new findings were published and the USDA put up a My Pyramid Web site with an assortment of links and detailed information on what they found. By clicking on the links on the left, you can find answers to most of the general questions you have on diet and exercise, complete with a food intake assessment that helps you calculate how you're doing based on your age, activity level and gender.

Dieters could benefit from this sort of approach, because a healthy weight-loss diet does much more than just cut calories. Many fad diets cut calories or limit food intake choices, but at the expense of nutrition. A good diet still includes a balance of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats and proteins, and your needs for all of those things change at different periods of your life.

Since 2005, the USDA has been adding improvements and expansions to this Web site. For example, it is now available in Spanish.

Since the new pyramid is designed to reflect changing needs throughout the life cycle, they have added a special link, My Pyramid for Moms. To find it, click on the link for pregnancy and breastfeeding. At that site, expectant and nursing mothers can find great advice just for them through various links.

They say pregnant women must eat for two, which is true in terms of quality if not quantity, and eating for breastfeeding increases both quantity and quality needs.

Not surprisingly, the recommendations for pregnant women begin with advice to see a physician first. Then you can go on to put in your age, height, weight before pregnancy, activity level and due date to generate a chart showing roughly what you should be eating from the general categories for each day. It goes further to indicate what types of foods you should choose from those categories. For example, in the vegetable category, you might choose so many servings of dark green vegetables, so many orange, so many starchy and so many beans or peas each week.

The personalized plan could be printed out and fastened to the fridge for use in menu planning. If it turns out that the expected new arrival is actually arrivals -- twins, triplets or more -- a separate link covers the amended food requirements.

If junior has already arrived and you are breastfeeding, you can fill in the appropriate information for an eating guide modified to fit those changed food requirements.

The research that produced all this information involved personnel from the USDA as well as nutrition and health experts from the George Washington Medical Center in Washington D.C.

The USDA is now anxiously involved in disseminating the information to health care professionals particularly in Women, Infant, Children (WIC) clinics where millions of women throughout the country receive medical help.

Go to mypyramid.gov and take a stroll to get advice on nutrition for yourself, your spouse and your children of all ages.