MyPlate for Dietary Guidelines
Few people heed the USDA’s nutrition guide.
Data from 2017 to March 2020 showed that 25.3% of U.S. adults had heard of MyPlate, the government’s educational tool to communicate federal dietary guidelines. That’s according to a study in the CDC’s National Health Statistics Reports. And a mere 8.3% had attempted to follow the recommendations.
Replacing the food pyramid, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate is a dinner plate–shaped graphic that divides a plate into serving sizes for vegetables, fruit, protein and grains with dairy on the side.
The percentages were higher for women than men, decreased with age and increased with education. Worth noting is that the researchers found that awareness of MyPlate and following the recommendations were positively associated with self-rated diet quality.
See also: The Dietary Guidelines for Americans: Can We Trust It?
Matthew Kadey, MS, RD
Matthew Kadey, MS, RD, is a James Beard Award–winning food journalist, dietitian and author of the cookbook Rocket Fuel: Power-Packed Food for Sport + Adventure (VeloPress 2016). He has written for dozens of magazines, including Runner’s World, Men’s Health, Shape, Men’s Fitness and Muscle and Fitness.
