The Pyramid Scheme:
Visual Metaphors and
the USDA’s Pyramid
Food Guides
Alison Perelman
In 1991 the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
announced the creation of the Eating Right Pyramid, an icon
designed to illustrate the federal government’s recommendations
for a healthy diet. Even before its release, the Pyramid was a source
of controversy; nutritionists and public health officials criticized
the project as an exercise in jurisdictional malfeasance, while beef
and dairy farmers complained that the new diet deemphasized the
nutritional benefits of their products. The greatest source of conflict,
Tuttavia, did not derive from the information the guide displayed,
but from the way in which that information was presented. While
criticism was hurled against both the specifics of the diet and the
fact that the Agriculture Department was responsible for generating
nutritional recommendations,1 the most contentious debate was
borne of the perceived hierarchical implications of the design
itself. Critics interpreted the Pyramid, the design selected because
it best reflected the proportion of a healthy diet each food group
represented, as a source of symbolic and value-laden meaning. A
the agriculture lobbies, the Eating Right Pyramid inappropriately
categorized foods as good and bad, while to doctors and nutritionists
the Pyramid presented the least healthy foods in the most positive
leggero. Consequently, the hierarchical implications of the pyramidal
shape defined the public discourse, and the Eating Right Pyramid
was reframed as a site of conflicting visual metaphors.
This paper analyzes the public discourse around the
perceived problems with the Pyramid’s design. While much research
has addressed the efficacy of the USDA’s nutritional policies from a
public health perspective, this paper considers the status of the food
pyramid, by far the most recognizable American nutritional guide,
as a cultural object that is subject to visual interpretation. To that
end, it tracks the discussion of the design’s development through
a discourse analysis of all articles about the Pyramid published in
the Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today—the three
newspapers that provided nearly all national coverage of the design’s
journey from the drawing board to the back of nearly all packaged
food products in the United States. This analysis is situated in Lakoff
and Johnson’s framework for understanding metaphors and focuses
on three stages in the food guide’s development: the unveiling of the
© 2011 Istituto di Tecnologia del Massachussetts
Design Issues: Volume 27, Numero 3 Estate 2011
1 While beyond the scope of this paper,
it is critical to note the potential conflict
of interest inherent in the USDA’s
position as both agricultural advocate
and national nutritionist. Much excel-
lent scholarship has interrogated this
problematic dynamic, preeminently
Marion Nestle’s Food Politics (Berkeley:
Stampa dell'Università della California, 2007).
60
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Eating Right Pyramid, the decision to reassess the design, and the
subsequent release of the renamed Food Guide Pyramid one year
Dopo. Finalmente, the paper will interrogate the discourse surrounding
the release of MyPyramid, the USDA’s first and only major overhaul
of the Food Guide, in light of the issues presented in the case of the
first Pyramid.
A History of American Food Guides
Established in 1862, the mission of the United States Department of
Agriculture included the task of “acquiring and diffusing among the
people of the United States useful information on human nutrition.”2
The USDA released its first dietary recommendations at the end of
the nineteenth century in the form of food composition tables; IL
first graphical depictions of the food guide were produced in the
1940S. Initially, the guides were more concerned with variety than
proportionality. In the face of rationing during World War II, IL
federal government told Americans to eat from eight food groups,
photographs of which were arranged in two rows of four equally
sized squares in the accompanying visual guide3 (Figura 1). Nel
12 years following the end of the war the number of food groups
dropped to 7, which were depicted in the illustrated Basic Seven
food guide as a single column of identically-sized boxes containing
images of the foods represented (Figura 2). In 1956, in an effort to
simplify what was considered an overly complicated model, IL
USDA released its consolidated food guide, the Basic Four4 (Figura
3). In the associated graphic the milk and bread groups were housed
in abstract, egg-like yellow and orange shapes, and the meat and
fruit and vegetable groups in red and green rectangles. While the
2
K. Dun Gifford, “Dietary Fats, Eating
Guides, and Public Policy: History,
Critique, and Recommendations,” The
American Journal of Medicine 113:9,
(2002) 89–106.
3 A visual archive of food guides is
available through the USDA at http://
www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/history/index.
html (accessed May 27, 2011)
4 Nestle, Food Politics, 36–7.
Figura 1
From the United States Department of
Agriculture, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/
history/ww2.htm
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Figura 2 (left)
From the United States Department of
Agriculture, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/
history/basic7.htm
Figura 3 (right)
From the United States Department of
Agriculture, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/
history/basic4.htm
Ibid, 40–2.
Carole Davis and Etta Saltos, “Dietary
Recommendations and How They Have
Changed Over Time,” in America’s Eating
Habits: Changes and Consequences,
Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 750:
33–50, ed. Elizabeth Frazao (Washington,
DC: Economic Research Service, United
States Dept of Agriculture, 1999).
5
6
62
Basic Four marked the first time the food groups weren’t represented
as identical units, the motivation for the shift in design was strictly
visual and did not derive from a concern with depicting the relative
proportionality of a healthy diet.
A congressional review in 1977 found an increase in cases of
preventable diseases believed to be related to diet, and in response
the USDA released an informational booklet, Food, which included
a new dietary scheme that had at its foundation the Basic Four food
groups but amended the model to include a fifth group consisting of
fats, sweets, and alcohol5 (Figura 4). To display these new recommen-
dations, which for the first time included a call for moderation, IL
accompanying guide depicted a stack of rectangular photomontages
of some foods that were found in the Basic Four groups but included
at the bottom a box half the size of the others, representing the new
fats, sweets, and alcohol group. This image marked the first time a
group’s visual illustration mirrored its recommended consumption
relative to other foods.
Seven years later the USDA partnered with the American
Red Cross to create the Food Wheel, the first graphic designed
primarily with the issue of proportionality in mind.6 After four
years, the USDA conducted an analysis of the new design; the guide
tested poorly, due in large part to the consumers’ sense that it was
outdated. Subsequently, the department began developing a new
icon to display nutritional recommendations. The USDA revealed
the Eating Right Pyramid after three years of testing, during which
time the design was demonstrated as the best option to illustrate the
ideas of proportionality and moderation.
Design Issues: Volume 27, Numero 3 Estate 2011
Development of the Pyramid
In 1988 the Human Nutrition Information Service, the branch of the
USDA responsible for the development of nutritional recommen-
dations, contracted with a Washington, DC-based market research
firm, Porter Novelli, to develop and evaluate design options for
a new food guide. Until that point Porter Novelli was perhaps
best known for its work in Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign.
In the early stages of the new food guide’s development, the firm
considered five principle designs: a circle, blocks arranged in a circle,
blocks in a row, a pyramid, and an inverted pyramid, referred to as
a funnel. According to results generated by the initial focus group,
every design but the pyramid was flawed in a fundamental way: IL
blocks arranged in a circle were “too hard on the eyes;” the circle,
reminiscent of the Food Wheel, was deemed too familiar; and the
blocks in a row seemed too unbalanced.7
The inverted pyramid, meanwhile, generated the most
contentious results. While it received some extremely high marks,
many found the design unsettling and off-balance—so much so that
the “awkward” illustration interfered with viewers’ understanding
of the message.8 Results from these preliminary tests indicated
that people best understood the necessary nutritional concepts—
proportionality, variety, and moderation—when they were depicted
by the non-inverted pyramid.9 Due in large part to the design’s
success at displaying the recommended proportions of each food
group, the USDA adopted the pyramid and entered into the final
stages of its development.
After Porter Novelli determined the effectiveness of
the pyramid design, the project was turned over to the USDA’s
Design Division of Public Affairs for the second and third rounds
of analysis.10 At this point, in addition to re-testing many of the
designs the firm included in its evaluation, the USDA’s design
group also considered illustrations submitted to USA Today in
response to an article soliciting readers’ suggestions. The final
rounds of analysis, Perciò, included discussion of the original
graphic options, as well as a bowl of food, a pie chart made to look
like a plate, and a grocery cart stocked with a bar graph depicting
each food group.11 The USDA’s final decision came down to the
bowl and the pyramid, with both designs drawing high marks from
important constituencies, including children and minorities. Nel
end, the pyramid was determined to be the best at communicating
the message of proportionality and was thus scheduled for national
release in 1991 (Figura 5).
Criticism of the Eating Right Pyramid
Following the release of a preview of the Eating Right Pyramid,
a group of physicians issued a request to the USDA asking that
the department better integrate current medical opinion into the
new food guide’s recommended diet. Specifically, the physicians
Design Issues: Volume 27, Numero 3 Estate 2011
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Figura 4
From the United States Department of
Agriculture, http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/
history/has.htm
7
Susan O. Welsh, Carole Davis, and Anne
Shaw, “USDA’s Food Guide: Background
and Development,” U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Human Nutrition Information
Services, Miscellaneous Publication
Numero 1514 (Hyattsville, MD: USDA,
1993)
Ibid.
8
9 Nestle, Food Politics, 55.
10 Welsh, et al., “USDA’s Food Guide:
Background and Development.”
Figura 5
From the United States Department of
Agriculture, http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/
FGPGraphicResources.htm
proposed that the five major food groups be reorganized into four
new categories of fruits, grains, vegetables, and legumes; meat
and dairy products, they argued, should be considered secondary
options.12 The story entered into the national conversation when John
Block, a former secretary of the USDA and then head of the nation’s
largest pork lobby, argued that the physicians’ position amounted to
irresponsible nutritional advice. Malcolm Gladwell, then a journalist
at the Washington Post, interviewed nutritional professionals and
public interest groups about the Eating Right Pyramid and the
government’s new diet.
Perhaps expecting that they, like the physicians, would want
to discuss the finer points of the USDA’s nutritional recommen-
dations, Gladwell’s conversations with nutritional activists
instead revealed major points of contention about the design itself.
Specifically, the stakeholders’ criticisms of the Pyramid derived from
conflicting assessments of the design’s metaphorical entailments.
At the heart of the critiques offered by industry groups, nutritional
advocates, and public citizens was the notion that the Pyramid, COME
a shape, was inherently hierarchical and consequently categorized
foods as good and bad. At this point it was clear that the yet-unre-
leased Pyramid would be a contested design—a symbol to which two
antithetical, but equally hierarchical, readings could be attached.
In interviews with the groups representing the meat and
dairy industries, Gladwell encountered the concern that the icon,
because it was a pyramid, unfairly ranked foods. Specifically, IL
food lobbies took something of a Gestalt position, insisting that
the proximity of their products to the bad fats and sweets group
at the top rendered meat and dairy guilty by association. Jeannine
Kenney, a lobbyist with the National Milk Producers, surmised that
the pyramidal design “stigmatizes dairy products because they are
next to fats and oils.”13 As a result, she later stated, the dairy farmers
“are not happy with the way we look”14 because they were so close
to the bad foods meant to be enjoyed only sparingly.
Ibid.
11
12 Marian Burros, “U.S. Delays Issuing
Nutrition Chart," Il New York Times,
April 27, 1991, National Desk.
Ibid.
13
14 Carole Sugarman and Malcolm Gladwell,
“U.S. Drops New Food Chart: Meat,
dairy groups pressure the Agriculture
Department,” Washington Post, April 27,
1991, First Section.
64
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Health and nutritional experts were also worried with the
possible interpretation of good-versus-bad foods implicit in the
Pyramid’s inherent visual hierarchy; their concern, Tuttavia, era
that the foods in the fifth group at the top of the design would
be interpreted by consumers as healthy. Bonnie Liebman of the
Center for Science in the Public Interest explained: “There is a
visual problem with having the worst foods at the peak… It’s like
the worst foods are the whipped cream on top of a sundae.”15 This
sentiment was echoed by Joan Gussow, a nutritionist at Columbia
University Teachers’ College, who suggested, “It would be nice if
they inverted the pyramid… The best foods should be at the top.”16
To the nutritionists, the Pyramid, as it was oriented, unintentionally
promoted the least healthy foods. Although converse to one another,
the agriculture industry and nutritional advocacy groups’ readings of
the Eating Right Pyramid were contingent on the same metaphorical
entailments attributed to the pyramidal shape.
Finalmente, non-stakeholding individuals who followed
media coverage of the Pyramid problem also spoke out against
the design. In a letter to the editor, a reader of the The New York
Times explained, “The base of a pyramid is the largest, strongest,
and most necessary part of the structure, but visually, the most
significant part is the top… that is where America’s school children
will see the least healthy (and their most favorite) food group.”
The commentator continued his critique by using the same visual
metaphor and applying it to a different context, stating that the
“Eating Right Pyramid” must be the brainchild of a new man in the
USDA who is “trying to make his way up the bureaucratic pyramid
(to the precious top) by making change for change’s sake.”17 Like
the nutritional experts, many laypeople found that the design
emphasized the wrong foods.
The Pyramid as Hierarchical
The conflicting interpretations of the Eating Right Pyramid
that defined the discourse surrounding its release derive from
metaphorical entailments of the food guide’s pyramidal shape.
Specifically, the viewer engages with the Pyramid as something
with an up and down orientation. Lakoff and Johnson theorize
that metaphors serve as a critical framework for navigating human
experience. Part of this function includes providing an organizing
structure for the process of spatial orientation. Human engagement
with the physical world is guided by physical orientation; as such,
metaphors grounded in physical experiences are frequently adopted
in other contexts. One such metaphor is the relational concept of the
up-down schema. The up-down metaphor is particularly relevant to
everyday engagements with the physical world,18 and consequently
is the source of a number of highly correlated entailments that guide
both our use of language and the way we interpret visual cues. In
their discussion of Lakoff and Johnson, Clausner and Croft explain
Design Issues: Volume 27, Numero 3 Estate 2011
65
Ibid.
Ibid.
15
16
17 “The USDA’s Image Problem,"
Washington Post, April 21, 1991, Letters
to the Editor.
18 George Lakoff and Mark Johnson,
Metaphors We Live By: (Chicago: IL
University of Chicago Press, 2003), 56.
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that the up-down metaphor is so comprehensively conceived as to be
fully productive; questo è, nearly any term related to verticality can be
understood in terms of quantity or quality.19 For this reason, because
the pyramid is conceptualized according to the up-down schema,
the Eating Right Pyramid is interpreted with the entailments of that
metaphor in mind.
The Pyramid is understood according to the up-down
metaphor in part because it is readily connected to the physical
mondo. The dynamic between the visual object and its spatial
orientation is most apparent in the ways the Pyramid is imagined as
an object in space by those assessing its design. In his explanation as
to why the Pyramid was not inverted (inversion being the alternative
proposed by nutritional advocates), the creative director for Porter
Novelli explained that such a design was considered but ruled out
because the testers “saw it as being very unstable;” he continued,
“The thing about the pyramid [base down] is that its center of
gravity is very low. It’s not going to blow over.”20 Given these
comments, viewers clearly endowed the design with a considerable
degree of tangibility and attributed to it physical laws that do not
apply to two-dimensional renderings.
Hierarchical structure is understood in terms of up-down
schemas;21 consequently, the viewer engages with the Pyramid as
an object with inherent hierarchical implications. For this reason, IL
foods at the top—those in the narrowest sections so as to illustrate
they should account for the fewest number of servings—were
regarded by some viewers as appearing to be the best. Tuttavia,
an alternative—but equally hierarchical—reading of the Pyramid
is revealed in the critiques offered by those representing the meat
and dairy producers. Because the text accompanying the Pyramid
discourages the use of the foods at the apex of the design, Essi
argue, the foods at the top could be interpreted as being the best
at being the worst. According to this reading, the Pyramid is still
perceived as a hierarchical form, although the typical connotation
of each position within the hierarchy is reversed. To these critics,
even though the design is subject to an uncommon interpretation,
the issue is still related to the shape’s hierarchical implications. As
Gary Wilson, the director of food policy for the National Cattleman’s
Association explained, “We wanted to be sure that consumers did
not misinterpret the pyramid to be a ranking of food… we wanted
to avoid a good-foods, bad-foods ranking.”22 The complications
born of the converse yet similarly hierarchical readings of the
Pyramid offered by nutritional advocates and agricultural lobbyists
dominated the discourse about the design and illustrate the issues
that delayed the release of the Eating Right Pyramid.
Back to the Drawing Board
In late April 1991, less than two weeks after Gladwell’s article was
published, the release of the Eating Right Pyramid was officially
19 Timothy C. Clausner and William Croft,
“Productivity and Schematicity in
Metaphors,” Cognitive Science, 21:3,
(Estate 1997) 247:82.
20 Gladwell, “U.S. Rethinks, Redraws the
Food Groups.”
21 George Lakoff, Women, Fire, E
Dangerous Things (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1987), 283.
22 Marian Burros, “Plain Talk About Eating
Right," Il New York Times, ottobre 6,
1991, Magazine Desk.
66
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delayed to allow for further analysis of the design. In response to
the delay, Secretary Madigan, who stated he didn’t know the USDA
was developing the Pyramid until he read about the backlash in
a newspaper, believed it was necessary to reconsider the design.23
“I was amazed, just amazed,” Madigan explained, “I was on a
government plane with members of the House and Senate, and they
were quizzing me and saying, ‘Don’t you think this [the Pyramid]
is confusing? The bad things are at the top.’”24 Consequently,
despite calls by the American Cancer Association, American
Diabetic Association, and Public Voice for Food and Health Policy
to move forward with the Pyramid, the Eating Right Pyramid was
not released.25
In the initial stages of the reevaluation project, focus groups
were consulted and the data they provided were used to create
alternative designs that included variations on the pyramid, anche
as a bowl, a shopping cart, and a pie chart. Dopo 11 months, IL
consulting firm Bell Associates tested these options and found the
pyramid and a bowl, which ordered the five groups horizontally
rather than vertically, to be the most effective designs.26 Opinions
were mixed among the various stakeholders, as food industry
lobbyists preferred pie charts and bowl designs that didn’t depict the
food groups hierarchically, while nutrition professionals preferred the
pyramid designs because they more clearly conveyed the messages
of moderation and proportionality.27 The USDA, Tuttavia, era
primarily concerned with relaying two messages: that diet should
be varied and that consumption of fats, oils, and sugars should be
reduced. The bowl design more successfully displayed variety, while
the Pyramid was found to better express proportionality. Perché il
latter was considered the single most important issue, in April 1992
the renamed Food Guide Pyramid was released to the public.
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23 Carole Sugarman, “A Hard Row to Hoe:
Secretary of Agriculture Ed Madigan
Tries to Cultivate Both Farmers and
Consumers,” Washington Post, Marzo
25, 1992, Food Section.
Ibid.
24
25 Mike Snider, “USDA Needled for Inaction
on Food Chart,” USA Today, May 9, 1991,
Life Section.
26 Marian Burros, “Testing of Food Pyramid
Comes Full Circle," Il New York Times,
Marzo 25, 1992, Living Desk.
27 Nestle, Food Politics, 62.
28 Mike Snider, “Food Pyramid Changed
Slightly,” USA Today, April 28, 1992, Life
Sezione.
29 Carole Sugarman, "IL $855,000 Pyramid: NOI. revises nutritional guidelines,” Washington Post, April 28, 1992, First Section. (Slight) Variations on a Theme: The New Pyramid Aside from the revamped nomenclature, the Food Guide Pyramid included 33 changes from the original design. All of the changes were cosmetic; the macaroni, which looked like hot dogs to some people, was dropped in favor of spaghetti, and a wedge of cheese that resembled a slice of cake was made Swiss with the addition of some holes.28, 29 Tuttavia, the changes did nothing to make the design appear any less like a pyramid. Infatti, the most substantial changes were to the shape and apparent dimensionality of the Pyramid—alterations that made the revised version of the food guide look even more pyramidal. Three-dimensionality was ever more heavily implied in the Food Guide Pyramid, as a much more pronounced second face was added for depth. Di conseguenza, the new Pyramid adopted to an even greater degree the structure from which it derives its name. As the USDA returned from its delay with a variation on the same model, critics of the Food Guide Pyramid raised the same Design Issues: Volume 27, Numero 3 Estate 2011 67 objections they had offered in response to the Eating Right Pyramid. A lobbyist for the National Milk Producers Federation explained, “The industry would have preferred anything but the pyramid.”30 Such requests would fall on deaf ears. In response to the rehashing of the same critiques, Secretary of Agriculture Edward Madigan stated, “The Food Guide Pyramid was the most effective symbol to convey our message of proportion, moderation, and variety… We have done a very, very thorough job of arriving at this final symbol.”31 While all criticisms of the new Pyramid mirrored those offered 11 months earlier, for the first time in its coverage of the project the press spoke of the design as explicitly hierarchical. In covering the brouhaha surrounding the Pyramid’s aborted release in 1991, the press did not adopt a position regarding the hierarchical nature of the Pyramid or the question of whether the icon was promoting the idea that foods were either good or bad. While reporting on the release of the new design, Tuttavia, journalists took a clearer stance on the implications of the pyramidal icon. Carole Sugarman, who covered the entire process for the Washington Post, introduced discussion of the new Pyramid by explaining that “Previous symbols have emphasized variety in the diet, rather than stressing which were more important than others, and they have not stressed a reduction in consumption of fat.”32 In addition, an article in USA Today described the new Pyramid as “The new pyramidal graphic that ranks food.”33 By describing the Pyramid as an icon that ranks foods rather than one that illustrates them in proper proportions, the press adopted the language that framed the design as inherently hierarchical. The Anti-Hierarchical Design of MyPyramid In early 2004, the USDA announced that it was considering alternatives to the Eating Right Pyramid. At the time, the most viable alternatives were a wheel, a square, and a “radiant” pyramid developed by Porter Novelli.34 In 2005, the Agriculture department settled on the radiant pyramid design, an icon frequently described as the Food Guide Pyramid flipped on its side. Inoltre, the new Pyramid includes a figure climbing a staircase running along the left side in an effort to promote physical activity (Figura 6). While MyPyramid was lauded for its customizability—the resource is online and can be personalized according to age, sex, and level of physical activity—the new design was nonetheless subject to derision. Detractors offered scathing critiques of the new design, arguing that the Pyramid “is the nutritional equivalent of the Homeland Security advisory system, and about as useful”35 and that it looks like “the kind of undecipherable road sign drivers might encounter while motoring in one of the former Soviet Republics.”36 It would appear that the new design was both a direct response to, and a preemptive strike against, problems that arose from the hierarchical entailments of the previous designs. 30 Burros, “Testing of Food Pyramid Comes Full Circle.” 31 Mike Snider, “New Logo’s Cost: 1 million lunches,” USA Today, April 29, 1992, Life Section. 32 Sugarman, "IL $855,000 Pyramid.”
33 “The Great Pyramid at USDA,"
Washington Post, April 30, 1992, Opinion.
34 Sally Squires, “Eyeing the Food Pyramid,"
Washington Post, Febbraio 3, 2004,
Health Section.
35 Kim Severson, “The Government’s
Pyramid Scheme," Il New York Times,
April 24, 2005, Week in Review.
36 Brooke Gladstone, “On the Media” radio
program. Guest Speaker Marion Nestle.
New York: NPR Radio, Gennaio 20, 2006.
68
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Figura 6
From the United States Department of
Agriculture, http://www.mypyramid.gov/
global_nav/media_resources.html
Much of the criticism derived from the fact that MyPyramid
looks very little like a pyramid. In an interview about the design of
the new Pyramid, an art director for Newsweek, The New York Times,
and Rolling Stone, explains, “A pyramid… should indicate hierarchy
or quantity” and by “turning it on its side,” he continues, “it’s no
longer a pyramid.”37 The original pyramid was a pyramid not simply
in name but also in design, as the rows of horizontal blocks and
three-dimensional effects served to identify it as such. And while
the controversy surrounding the Food Guide Pyramid and the
Eating Guide Pyramid was a direct consequence of the hierarchical
entailment of the design, the hierarchical implication of previous
Pyramids, in particular, found support as the guides aged.
Not surprisingly, players in the food industry did not
express concern about the new design; Infatti, in concert with the
new Pyramid’s release, grocery manufacturers and food producers
launched “Take a Peak,” a program designed to help consumers
use the nutritional advice provided by MyPyramid.38 While the
food industry had complained about the hierarchical nature of the
previous Pyramids, such a critique would not, and could not, be
leveled against the new, rotated design. Infatti, the groups’ spelling
of “peek” as “peak” draws particular attention to the apex of the
new Pyramid—a small white triangle atop the colored bars—a space
that is visually disassociated from any of the food groups and thus
actively resists any kind of hierarchical interpretation.
Some of the changes to the Pyramid’s design seem to be in
direct conversation with earlier discourse. The reorientation of the
food groups as vertical sections, as opposed to the horizontal blocks,
negates the possibility that any one group could be seen as above or
below any other. In the new design, no food is at the base and none is
at the top. Consequently, with no single food group at the literal base
of the pyramid, food industry analysts suggested that many foods
could be identified as the (figurative) foundation of a healthy diet.39
Inoltre, the fats, oils, and sweets group, which was in many
Design Issues: Volume 27, Numero 3 Estate 2011
69
37 Lynne Perri, “Designers’ Challenge:
Redo the Food Pyramid,” USA Today,
settembre 6, 2005, Life Section.
38 Sally Squires, “Secrets of the Food
Pyramid, Revealed,” The Washington
Post, Gennaio 16, 2007, Health Section.
39 “Trade Associations Anxious About
USDA’s Food Pyramid Design,” Food and
Drink Weekly, Gennaio 31, 2005.
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ways the root of all problems in the first two iterations, is hidden in
plain sight. The group, which is referred to as the oil group in the
new Pyramid, is represented by a thin, yellow stripe with a picture
of a bottle of oil below it; Tuttavia, and the word “oil” is not listed
alongside the other food groups and, but for the single, small bottle,
is almost unidentifiable. In all, the vertical reorientation contributes
to a sense that MyPyramid is a pyramid in name only.
Conclusione
By 2004, the Pyramid was widely accepted as the most effective
way to illustrate nutritional information in large part because it was
inherently hierarchical. As Marion Nestle, one of the most prominent
early critics of the Pyramid explained, “I like its hierarchical nature—
the way it shows that it’s better to eat some foods than others.”40 This
sense was shared among health professionals, as the Mayo Clinic,
Harvard School of Public Health, and American Heart Association
created modified food pyramids to depict their primary nutritional
concerns. Inoltre, UN 2007 World Health Organization evaluation
of food-based dietary guides reported that 16 Di 35 of the world’s
food guides were pyramids.41 The advantages of the pyramid that
resulted in its widespread adoption, Tuttavia, were lost in the
MyPyramid redesign.
The drastic reconfiguring of the Pyramid highlights the
extent to which the shape is interpreted through an up-down spatial
orientation. Following extensive testing, the Eating Right and Food
Guide Pyramids demonstrated that they were the best possible
designs to illustrate the principles of proportionality and moderation,
in large part because they were inherently hierarchical. In that
respect, MyPyramid fails as a design because it does not allow for a
hierarchical—that is, up-down—reading by the viewer. The failure
to retain the aspect of the Pyramid believed to be most visually
effective was not lost on those responsible for creating the new icon.
When pressed to explain the decision to completely overhaul this
progetto, Porter Novelli directed all inquiries to the USDA; the USDA,
Tuttavia, would not comment on the guide on the grounds that it
was not the agency’s pyramid.42 It may or may not have been the
responsibility of the USDA, but the design in question was certainly
not a typical pyramid.
While some critics challenged the particulars of the USDA’s
nutritional message, backlash generated by the USDA’s diagrams
arose primarily as a result of the metaphorical entailments of the
icon’s pyramidal design. Those concerned about the design were
equally troubled by the hierarchical implications of the shape but
understood the Pyramid to rank the identified food groups in
contrasting ways: While the meat and dairy lobbies argued that
proximity to the fats, oils, and sweets group rendered their foods
guilty by association, nutritionists contended that the positioning
of the worst foods at the top of the Pyramid conflicted with the
40 Judith Weinraub, “The Power of the
Pyramid: The government’s symbol of
healthful eating still reigns supreme.
But should it?” The Washington Post,
Gennaio 15, 2003, Food Section.
41 Jurgen Koenig, “Visualization of
Food-Based Dietary Guidelines
Esempi,” Annals of Nutrition and
Metabolism 51 (2007), 36-43.
42 Marian Burros, “U.S. Introduces a
Revised Food Pyramid,” The New York
Times, April 20, 2005.
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nutritional recommendations the guide was designed to convey.
Consequently, the USDA returned the Eating Right Pyramid to the
drawingboard, and a year and nearly $1 million later, the resulting
limited cosmetic changes did nothing to address the underlying
concerns with the design. Tuttavia, IL 2004 major retooling of the
guide—MyPyramid—seems to have been a direct response to the
problematic hierarchical implications of the pyramid food guides.
These concerns were mitigated by the aggressively anti-hierarchical
nature of the new design; in sum, the Eating Right and Food Guide
Pyramids were replaced with a pyramid without a base or peak, UN
design against which hierarchical critiques could not be leveled.
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