THURSDAY, Dec. 8, 2005 (HealthDay News) -- Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture have announced the launch of a Spanish-language version of the government's online nutrition guide MyPyramid.
MiPirámide: Pasos Hacia Una Mejor Salud (MyPyramid: Steps to a Healthier You) is intended to make it easier for Spanish-speaking Americans to access information about healthy living and to personalize that information to their own lifestyle.
Hispanics in the United States have a higher than average rate of overweight and obesity -- nearly 75 percent of Hispanic adults and nearly 25 percent of Hispanic children are overweight or obese, according to government statistics.
"We recognize the importance of working with minority communities to provide informative tools that help them to make healthy choices. Eating a nutritious diet, being physically active every day and getting preventative health screenings can help many Americans, including Latinos, to improve their health," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a prepared statement.
The English version of MyPyramid was unveiled in April and has had more than a billion hits since then. Both sites include information about: making smart choices from every food group; finding a personal balance between food intake and physical activity; and getting the most nutrition from the calories you consume.
The sites incorporate recommendations from the 2005 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, published by the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services.
More information
Here's where you can find MiPirámide .
