Comment by genewitch
3 days ago
> A person is most likely to see a food pyramid poster in an elementary or middle school classroom, cafeteria, or hallway, where it was commonly displayed as an educational tool during the 1990s and 2000s to teach nutrition.
the first one was in 1982 or something, so you have nearly 3 whole generations who were exposed to it (X, Millennial, and Z). I really can't tell if you're actually incredulous; because all the nutrition stuff is told to schoolchildren. Adults don't use a chart, they use self-help books.
Yeah, but 2000 was 25 years ago. There's multiple generations who haven't been exposed to it, so this is not replacing the food pyramid, it's replacing what replaced the food pyramid.
only 1 generation has completely escaped the one from "25 years ago" - Alpha; and another generation is incoming; and if the new poster sticks around, a couple of generations will see the new one, too.
> the first one was in 1982 or something
The first one came out in 1992, and was active until MyPyramid came out in 2005. Which was then active until MyPlate came out in 2011.
you're correct, my eyesight gets worse as the day goes on and i saw the second "9" as an 8. that only partially reduces the impact from my claim of X, Millennial, Zoomer; as i am gen X and i was still in "middle school" when the food pyramid came out, and my millennial sister assuredly was. the older Gen X (from the early 1970s) may or may not remember (as in an only child and childless until after the poster was no longer used) this from their younger years in classrooms.
My main point was (i think!) that really the only people seeing these posters on a regular basis are schoolchildren. I think i've seen the pyramid a dozen times in the last 20 years, on cereal boxes or websites or whatever, but if you don't recognize it, it's easily written off. Maslow also had a pyramid, etc.
I would be interested in knowing what cereal box you saw it on or where you saw it promoted seriously in the last 20 years.
In the late 90s I was in high school in a town with less that 80k people in the middle of the congenital USA and the pyramid with bread, cereal, rice and pasta at the base was not seriously pushed, or taken seriously, at school or when it came up outside of school.