USDA's My Plate or Harvard's Plate

Question

Nowadays it is very popular to practice a healthy lifestyle and healthy food is a significant part of it. The USA health care professionals try to encourage people to keep themselves fit. However, a lot of people know too little about healthy eating or even do not care about this issue. Various websites were created to help people to get more information on this topic. “Food plates” were developed to show what kind of impact nutrition has on organisms.

There are two most popular websites devoted to this problem: www.hsph.harvard.edu and www.choosemyplate.gov. Both of them have advantages and disadvantages. Harvard’s Plate has all needed descriptions about the plate ingredients just near the picture and this information is easy to understand. At the same time, in my opinion, Harvard’s Plate excludes some food that is not harmful to the health and has a positive effect on the mood. This gives less freedom to choose what to eat, which makes you feel uncomfortable. USDA’s My Plate is more complex and there is much more useful information, helpful tips, and pieces of advice there than at the Harvard website. USDA’s Plate gives all necessary descriptions through the supported links; moreover, it provides detailed information with a lot of examples. I prefer www.choosemyplate.gov because it is easier to follow and interesting to read.

USDA’s My Plate has great potential for health care professionals. The site has specific guidelines and Federal Nutrition Education resources, which help to understand and develop knowledge about healthy eating. At the USDA’s plate, it is possible to create a personal eating diary and even to create the pyramid, which helps health care professionals to see the problem and its solutions in practice. It helps its users to visualize and create an individual approach to his/her healthy eating. USDA’s My Plate provides a big number of recipes that will help to cook delicious and healthy food. Professionals can use these recipes to decide what to include into the menus of schools, hospitals, and cafes, that work in the healthy food sphere. The USDA shows that it is easy to be healthy.