Food experts are finding plenty of sweet and sour in the U.S. government's new food pyramid, not least of which is its reliance on the Internet to guide Americans to healthier living.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled the new guide yesterday, pointing Internet users to www.mypyramid.gov. The Web site makes new strides in the federal government's desire to be more audience-friendly, offering bundles of interesting information, not to mention the new, more abstract pyramid.
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Mypyramidtracker.gov, as Washington Post nutrition reporter Sally Squires wrote, allows users to "electronically log on and keep a record of as much as a year's worth of food intake and physical activity on the Web site. Users can analyze their history by the day, the week, the month or the year to see how it stacks up against their guidelines." The site is so sensitive to possible customer concerns that it lets people tour the site anonymously if the thought of registering personal data with Uncle Sam gives them indigestion.
At first glance, this is great. The federal government, which traditionally responds at a glacial pace to new technologies, embraces the Web in an effort to make us all healthier. But what about all those Americans who still don't have regular access to the Internet? This question pops up time and time again across the news media this morning.
Long Island's Newsday quoted Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and public health at New York University: "Obesity is concentrated among the poor, and they're people who don't have computers. Now not only do you have to have a computer, but you have to be computer-savvy enough to use an extremely complicated Web site."
Ouch! Nestle, who some movie fans might remember from Morgan Spurlock's controversial film "Super Size Me," wasn't the only one who made this point.
* Margo Wootan, senior scientist at consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, as quoted by the Detroit Free Press: "People need very clear advice without having to log on to the Internet."
* Amy Olson, registered dietician at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Ill., told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the site would be great for those who can use it, but "For a lot of people, that makes it not possible."
* Elizabeth Pivonka, president of the Produce for Better Health Foundation, told The Washington Post that she likes the site but that "the population most in need doesn't have access to computers."
* Walter Willett, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, also to The Post: "The fact that almost all the information is on the Web is a lost opportunity, because only the very most motivated people will go the Web and dig into this information more deeply."
