MyPlate? Few Americans know or heed US nutrition guide

Here’s a quick quiz: What replaced the food pyramid, the government guide to healthy eating that stood for nearly 20 years?

If you’re stumped, you’re not alone.

More than a decade after Agriculture Department officials ditched the pyramid, few Americans have heard of MyPlate, a dinner plate-shaped logo that emphasizes fruits and vegetables.

Only about 25% of adults were aware of MyPlate – and less than 10% had attempted to use the guidance, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics. Those figures for 2017-2020 showed only slight improvement from a similar survey done a few years earlier.

That means that the Obama administration program that costs about $3 million a year hasn’t reached most Americans, even as diet-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease have continued to rise.

“This is currently the primary education tool that communicates guidelines for Americans,” said the study's lead author, Edwina Wambogo, a nutrition epidemiologist at the agency. “MyPlate should be doing a little bit better.”

The results are hardly surprising, said Marion Nestle, a food policy expert.

“Why would anyone expect otherwise?” she said in an email. “MyPlate never came with an education campaign, is old hat by now, only dealt with healthy foods, said nothing about unhealthy foods and is so far from what Americans actually eat as to seem unattainable.”

A top USDA official said the agency's proposed fiscal year 2023 budget seeks an increase from $3 million to $10 million a year to bolster the MyPlate campaign by extending its reach and making recipes and other materials more culturally relevant.

“We absolutely want to make sure that MyPlate and other critical tools are in the hands of more people,” said Stacy Dean, deputy...