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Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
Statement of Eric J. Hentges, Executive Director
Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion
Before the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development,
and Related Agencies
March 30, 2006
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
members of the Subcommittee, for allowing me this opportunity to present
testimony in support of the Administration’s budget for fiscal year
2007.
With the Nation facing significant
public health issues related to the quality of the American diet, I
believe that the outcome-based efforts of the Center for Nutrition
Policy and Promotion are key to promoting more healthful eating
behaviors and lifestyles across the Nation. Working from its mission to
improve the health of Americans by developing and promoting dietary
guidance that links scientific research to the nutrition needs of
consumers, the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion has a critical
role in how USDA meets its strategic goal to improve the Nation’s
nutrition and health.
Trends Continue to Show Need
for Revised Nutrition Guidance and Educational Tools
Recent studies of America’s
dietary and physical activity behaviors reveal disturbing trends. First,
a combination of poor diet and sedentary lifestyle not only undermines
quality of life and productivity, but it also contributes to the
preventable causes of deaths each year in the United States.
Second, specific diseases and
conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, overweight and
obesity, and osteoporosis, are clearly linked to a poor diet. Recent
statistics are staggering: 65 percent of adults (ages 20 to 74) are
overweight, with 31 percent among this group classified as obese.
Children and adolescents have not escaped this unhealthy outcome: among
6- to 19-year-olds, 16 percent (over 9 million) are overweight—triple
what the proportion was in 1980. Another 15 percent are at risk of
becoming overweight. With statistics showing an increase in overweight
and obesity and estimates indicating that obesity-attributable medical
expenditures in the United States reached $75 billion in 2003, the
health of Americans is a serious concern that must be addressed.
Third, the lack of physical
activity has been associated with a number of conditions, including
diabetes, overweight and obesity, cardiovascular disease, and certain
cancers. Supporting evidence indicates less than half (46 percent) of
the U.S. population meets the recommended level of physical activity.
USDA’s involvement is critical in helping to stem and eventually reverse
some of these disturbing trends.
Dietary Guidelines for
Americans Establish Federal Nutrition Policy
In conjunction with the Department
of Health and Human Services, USDA released the sixth edition of the
Dietary Guidelines for Americans on January 12, 2005. This science-based
blueprint for promoting good nutrition and health encourages Americans
to “(1) Make smart choices from every food group, (2) Find your balance
between food and physical activity, and (3) Get the most nutrition out
of your calories.”
The Guidelines, the basis for
Federal nutrition policy, provide advice for healthy Americans, ages 2
years and older, about food choices that promote health and prevent
disease. These Guidelines not only form Federal nutrition policy, but
they also set standards for the nutrition assistance programs, guide
nutrition research and education efforts, and are the basis for USDA
nutrition promotion activities.
As the lead Federal agency in
administration of the 2010 Guidelines, USDA’s Center for Nutrition
Policy and Promotion has already begun laying the foundations — planning
the management strategies that USDA will use to lead in interagency
coordination and putting into place an evidence-based system. An
evidence-based system will provide a framework or protocol for
comprehensive analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, ranking
its strengths according to established criteria. In developing nutrition
guidance, this system will enable government decision makers to make the
best policy supported by the strongest scientific evidence available,
giving both the Executive and Legislative branches of government along
with the scientific community and the general public a continued
confidence in nutrition policies, guidelines and recommendations that
are being developed and promoted.
MyPyramid Serves as Premier
Teaching Tool
MyPyramid, based on the 2005
Dietary Guidelines for Americans, supports two pillars of the
President’s HealthierUS Initiative: to “Eat a Nutritious Diet” and to
“Be Physically Active Every Day.” MyPyramid is an individualized,
interactive tool to help Americans build the Guidelines into their daily
lives. Included in the MyPyramid webpage are the MyPyramid Plan and
MyPyramid Tracker. MyPyramid Plan helps consumers find the types and
amounts of food they should eat to meet nutrient requirements. MyPyramid
Tracker, which has nearly 1 million registered users to date, is for
consumers who want a detailed assessment and analysis of their current
eating and physical activity behaviors; and it provides guidance on how
to improve those behaviors. Since its launch in April 2005,
MyPyramid.gov has received over 1.5 billion hits.
USDA also launched MyPyramid for
Kids, a child-friendly version of MyPyramid targeted to schoolchildren.
This tool is designed to encourage children to make smart food choices
each day. An interactive learning computer game; lesson plans for
educators; colorful posters and flyers; and other resources are
available to help children make those choices. To reach an even broader
audience, Spanish language versions of MyPyramid (MiPirámide) and
MyPyramid for Kids (MiPirámide para Ninos) have been developed. These
materials have been distributed to tens of thousands of schools across
America and are also available online.
The President’s budget requests an
increase of $1.98 million for CNPP. These funds will support maintenance
and enhancements to MyPyramid, improvements in customer support and
outreach capabilities. This budget will help USDA determine whether the
use of the Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid by the American public,
teachers, students, and health professionals ultimately improves the
American diet.
Planned activities directly
related to MyPyramid include the procurement of ongoing web hosting and
maintenance of MyPyramid.gov and MyPyramid Tracker, which assist the
public in monitoring and developing individualized healthy eating plans.
In addition, this funding will provide for the maintenance and upgrading
of related hardware and software; increased operational costs realized
from spikes in the usage of the website; developmental costs associated
with improvements to MyPyramid Tracker; and acquisition of new food and
nutrient composition data bases and integration of the Healthy Eating
Index into MyPyramid Tracker.
With this budget, CNPP will
procure the development and implementation of a continual evaluation
plan for MyPyramid to ascertain its usefulness by the American consumer.
Additionally, CNPP plans to enhance the MyPyramid.gov website with
interactive capabilities to encourage behavior change that promotes
healthful diets across a broad spectrum of American society. This would
include a meal planning feature which is currently missing, a recipe
file feature, and a shopping list feature all of which have been
requested by the public and the professional nutrition community.
With thousands of emails, written
correspondence, telephone inquiries and hotline calls that have resulted
from the overwhelming success of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
and MyPyramid.gov, CNPP also intends to use appropriated resources
toward four additional staff years devoted exclusively to assisting the
public in the areas of information dissemination and improvement of the
CNPP, Dietary Guidelines and MyPyramid websites. These additional staff
years would allow CNPP to provide customer support in timely manner;
enhance the outreach and promotion of MyPyramid.gov; and support USDA’s
Nutrition.gov website and USDA’s on-line “Ask the Expert.”
With your support, we look forward
to continuing to build, enhance, and better promote personalized and
individualized nutrition guidance tools—such as MyPyramid.gov—reaching
millions of Americans daily. Your support will also help us improve
customer support and outreach as well as set the foundation for future
development of scientific nutrition policy, which is vital to addressing
the growing problems of overweight and obesity and the related health
challenges in America.
I thank the Committee for the
opportunity to present this written testimony.
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