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Michelle Obama began the first months of her career as First Lady by making a resolution to tackle America’s burgeoning obesity problem head-on, starting with children.  In Florida, as well as other states throughout the southeast and the rest of the country as a whole, the percentage of obese children has risen to epic numbers.  The First Lady is right to be concerned with helping influence the poor eating habits of Americans and to encourage better nutrition for children in particular – but her rather lame approach amounts to overhauling the old Food Pyramid that has been a general guideline for healthy eating set forth by the FDA for more than 27 years.  Even so, the old Food Guide Pyramid was full of inaccuracies as well, which probably helped lead to the obesity epidemic we are now in the midst of.

The new Obama idea is found at http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ , the new site that replaces the old pyramid idea with a round plate divided into sections that represent percentages of food types that should be on peoples’ plates.  This is obviously not going to cut it, because plates come in hundreds of sizes, and people tend to pile up.  Not only will this not suffice for portion control and ensuring adequate nutrition, after all, people will consider mashed potatoes loaded with butter and cheese a “vegetable” and pile them high into that little portion of the plate so designated — it could actually lead to a false sense of well being in some people, who will depend on this to help them lose weight.  They might actually be more prone to gain.

The only real way to eat well is to know what you are putting in your mouth:  that means reading labels, measuring (with scales, cups, teaspoons, etc…) the foods you eat, and accounting for the grams of fat, fiber, protein, and carbohydrate present in each meal — and most of all, you have to know how many calories your body needs and stick to that number.  No “plate” is going to do that for anyone.

Here, have a look for yourself.