New icon illustrating healthy eating guidelines will look familiar to Weight Watchers members and subscribers.
Be sure to take a look at the new United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) “My Plate” icon offering dietary guidance. Look familiar? If you’ve been following the PointsPlus® program, you’ll likely see that it looks a lot like your own dinner plate! The new icon, replacing the USDA’s longstanding pyramid, shows a greater emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables, and aims to more clearly represent the choices Americans should be making when it comes to their eating habits.
The icon suggests filling half of your plate with fruits and vegetables — a value that Weight Watchers whole-heartedly embraces. The rest of your plate should be taken up by protein and grains (half of those grains should be whole). There’s also a small circle attached to the plate signifying dairy. There are charts available at ChooseMyPlate.gov for each of the five food groups explaining recommended amounts for different sexes and age groups.
Liz Josefsberg, director of brand advocacy for Weight Watchers and our resident Leader, knows that the plate icon will resonate for her meetings members. “Before, the USDA was saying your day should look like this pyramid, which was hard to quantify,” she said . “The new plate visual is what’s so meaningful. You don’t look at your food in a pyramid shape, you look at it on a plate. We’ve been using that visual in meeting rooms for years as teaching tool. It’s not just how much of your day should be composed of a certain food group, but every meal. That’s so much more effective.”
David Kirchhoff, president and CEO of Weight Watchers International, applauded the new icon, which he praised as being “common sense.” He added, “Like the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which were released in January, the nutrition advice conveyed in the icon will seem very familiar to Weight Watchers members, because it guides Americans to the same foods as the PointsPlus program. Like the PointsPlus program, it also encourages Americans to eat more fruits and vegetables and to choose foods that are nutrient-dense. The Dietary Guidelines gives you great advice. Weight Watchers shows you how to live it.”
Additional USDA guidelines include avoiding oversize portions and switching to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk. The USDA also suggests Americans check labels for sodium levels and choose those with lower numbers, as well as advising us to drink water instead of sugary drinks. (And if you’re following the PointsPlus program, these are things you already do!)
Josefsberg added that on the USDA's plate, you don’t see a section of processed packaged foods made up of things you can’t pronounce. “That’s what the PointsPlus formula does, too. It nudges you to make those better choices. It shows that not all calories are created equal.”
“The new nutrition icon, like the PointsPlus program, shows Americans how to fill their plates with the kinds of foods that are delicious to eat and can help you feel fuller,” said Karen Miller-Kovach, chief scientific officer, Weight Watchers International “Following this approach can help more people achieve and maintain a healthy weight.”
Kirchhoff said the company has long been supportive of, and has served as a resource for, the USDA.
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