Here's a little quiz: let's say you were trying to encourage your kids to live a more healthful lifestyle. Would you:

a) Take a family bike ride
b) Enjoy a "funny face" snack made with bagels, raisins, and apples
c) Send them to play a computer game

If you guessed "c," go to the head of the line and consider applying for a job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture!

Introducing the new kids' food pyramid, recently unveiled by the aforementioned Department, along with its accompanying computer game--all part of a balanced educational diet.

This is not your mother's food pyramid. No longer are food groups represented as horizontal blocks with bread and cereals at the foundation. Now we have rainbow colored stripes representing each group running bottom to top (or top to bottom, depending on your preference). We wouldn't want any food groups feeling like one was more important than another.

Except sugar. After all, kids might get the wrong idea with the old food pyramid that placed sugar and fat up top--as if they were the pinnacle of food or something. In fact, sugar is not even on the new pyramid, having been grounded and sent to its room.

Some critics don't think the punishment went far enough. "The materials don't even have the guts to urge kids to drink less soda pop, to eat less candy," said Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest. Apparently Mr. Jacobson would be happier if sugar were beaten and kept in a dark closet.

He might like the government's video game, however. In the "MyPyramid Blast Off" game, kids load a rocket ship with the right combination of healthy foods: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lowfat or fat-free milk and lean meat. Load up with the wrong kind of fuel, or too much of it, and you can't blast off to Planet Power.

Meet up with Darth Sugar, and the player is shoved, screaming, into an endless black void, while also being attacked by the evil Caketroopers who blast away using their deadly bullets poisoned with trans fat.

Just kidding about that last part.

So, should kids be encouraged to exercise and use moderation in their eating habits? Of course.

Will the new pyramid and its culinary computer game make a significant difference in that endeavor? If you believe that, you might be a good candidate to be taken in by a different kind of pyramid scheme.
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copyright 2006 Angie Brennan