The food pyramid, long featured in federal health guidelines and physical education classrooms, was replaced by the MyPlate graphic in 2011. Now, the food pyramid is back — but it has been turned upside down.
Following the Jan. 7 release of new dietary guidelines by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., experts and residents in Evanston and Chicago expressed skepticism of the updated nutrition advice, particularly its emphasis on protein intake.
According to the new guidelines, Americans should strive to intake 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight every day — an increase from the Recommended Dietary Allowance of 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.
Kaitlin Chakos, a registered dietitian and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Illinois Chicago, said she uses the MyPlate model to better explain to patients how to visualize balanced meals rather than employing a pyramid.
“Even just looking at the graphic, I, as a dietitian, have no idea what to do with that,” Chakos said. “How do I take this upside-down triangle and put that onto my plate?”
The 2020-25 guidelines reported that protein intake was already close to recommended numbers. About 75% of Americans met or exceeded recommendations for meat, poultry and egg consumption at the time.
According to Dr. Lisa Oldson, a clinical instructor at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, the new protein recommendations are too high and have led some patients at her weight-loss practice to feel the need to eat more.
“They’re feeling pressured by their trainers at the gym, and their exercise instructor, their neighbors and their friends and everyone they talk to, that they need to eat so much more protein in order to reach these dietary protein guidelines, that they actually would be gaining weight from this amount,” Oldson said.
Emphasizing animal protein by placing it at the top of the pyramid is misguided, said Daylan Dufelmeier, who has led nutrition education initiatives in the Chicago area. He added that the shift to a plate-based model was one of the most significant changes to nutritional education imagery because it allows users to easily visualize meals.
Kate Cares, a registered dietitian and postdoctoral fellow at UIC, said while she believes his intentions are sincere, Kennedy’s lack of scientific background is “problematic.”
Experts support some aspects of Kennedy’s guidelines, like discouraging consumption of ultra-processed foods and promoting limits on added sugars, said Kirsten Straughan, the director of the UIC nutrition science program. However, she added that the inverted pyramid structure does not align with scientific recommendations.
Vikki Proctor, the president of the Friends of Evanston Farmers Markets, said many community members do not trust the guidelines because they come from the Trump administration. Proctor added that her organization needs to expand their efforts to promote healthy eating.
“We know we have to do more this year,” she said. “We are going to be writing and passing out and making more information available, and we might end up avoiding the issue of confronting the pyramid. We might just go strictly with the science of eating healthy.”
Rogers Park resident Missy Thrasher-Lyon said the guidelines sound like advice from a fitness influencer who is more focused on gaining muscle than limiting their ecological impacts.
“It reflects the short-sightedness of a lot of our current governmental leadership, which has been taken over by these short-sighted people who are only looking for immediate gain,” Thrasher-Lyon said. “They’re really looking for immediate gains in muscles, and not thinking beyond themselves.”
Rogers Park resident Parker Eckert similarly decried the recommendations and said they come from “reactionary views” about eating healthy.
“The recommendations that he is making are mostly focused on fad diets unrelated to actual evidence,” Eckert said. “It seems that (there is) this whole crunchy concept of how people want to appear healthy.”
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