You Are What You Click

Byline: Robert MacMillan

Food experts are finding plenty of sweet and sour in the U.S. government's new food pyramid, not least of which is its reliance on the Internet to guide Americans to healthier living.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture unveiled the new guide yesterday, pointing Internet users to www.mypyramid.gov . The Web site makes new strides in the federal government's desire to be more audience-friendly, offering bundles of interesting information, not to mention the new, more abstract pyramid.

Mypyramidtracker.gov , as Washington Post nutrition reporter Sally Squires wrote, allows users to "electronically log on and keep a record of as much as a year's worth of food intake and physical activity on the Web site. Users can analyze their history by the day, the week, the month or the year to see how it stacks up against their guidelines." The site is so sensitive to possible customer concerns that it lets people tour the site anonymously if the thought of registering personal data with Uncle Sam gives them indigestion.

At first glance, this is great. The federal government, which traditionally responds at a glacial pace to new technologies, embraces the Web in an effort to make us all healthier. But what about all those Americans who still don't have regular access to the Internet? This question pops up time and time again across the news media this morning.

Long Island's Newsday quoted Marion Nestle , a professor of nutrition and public health at New York University : "Obesity is concentrated among the poor, and they're people who don't have computers. Now not only do you have to have a computer, but you have to be computer-savvy enough to use an extremely complicated Web site."

Ouch! Nestle, who some movie fans might remember from Morgan Spurlock's controversial film " Super Size Me ," wasn't the only one who made this point.

* Margo Wootan , senior scientist at consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest , as quoted by the Detroit Free Press : "People need very clear advice without having to log on to the Internet."

* Amy Olson , registered dietician at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Ill., told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the site would be great for those who can use it, but "For a lot of people, that makes it not possible."

* Elizabeth Pivonka , president of the Produce for Better Health Foundation , told The Washington Post that she likes the site but that "the population most in need doesn't have access to computers."

* Walter Willett , professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health , also to The Post: "The fact that almost all the information is on the Web is a lost opportunity, because only the very most motivated people will go the Web and dig into this information more deeply."

* University of Pennsylvania obesity expert Shiriki Kumanyika told the Philadelphia Inquirer : "I hope they buy a lot of TV time."

That's one thing that won't be happening. As The New York Times reported , the USDA doesn't have any advertising dollars budgeted toward reaching Americans via radio, television and print, all sources that plenty of people with limited or no Internet access tend to see more of.

However, USDA spokeswoman Terri Teuber said that the agency will release plenty of printed material and work closely with dieticians, nutritionists, educators, schools and more groups that do have the resources to disseminate the information publicly.

"We've had intense interest already from restaurant chains, grocery store chains, culinary schools," Teuber told me in an interview this morning. "They're very interested in helping us promote not only the pyramid but the key nutrition messages in the guidelines. I'm confident you are going to see this message in many different venues."

The Des Moines Register reported that the Grocery Manufacturers of America , a large and powerful trade group that represents companies such as General Mills , ConAgra and Del Monte , will sponsor a nationwide education campaign in conjunction with the Weekly Reader , that magazine that, at least in my elementary school, sat unopened on our desks for months at a time.

All the offline distribution of the new guidelines can't change one big fact. The nutrition information at mypyramidtracker.gov depends on users entering in their personal data to work. How are those non-wired Americans supposed to find the right diet, especially when the USDA has no plans to commit the more than 600 nutrition scenarios it posted on the Web to print?

"The difficulty with that is that it's personalized," Teuber said. "There is no way to respond on paper... Certainly [people without Internet access] can get the nutrition messages, but the tracker requires the Internet."

For half of America that's online, this is a great idea, and judging by the slow response of the USDA Web site yesterday and this morning, plenty of American Internet users are interested in learning more about eating right. For the other half, it's a new digital divide.

If the administration really wants to fight obesity, it will buttonhole Congress for a few extra dollars to buy some recycled paper and figure out a way to get this plan out to the rest of the country.

Why Isn't Brian Williams Blogging?

The answer is "I don't know," according to Jeff Zucker . The president of NBC Universal Television Group thinks that it might be the right time for Williams and the network's other top news anchors and celebrity interviewers to get busy in the blogosphere. Reuters reported : "'Over the next two years, network news is going to go through a lot more changes,' Zucker said at a Yahoo conference on high-speed Internet use. 'This is one of the biggest issues facing traditional network news divisions.'" Zucker said he is considering outfitting Williams with a blog of his own, as well as Today show co-host Katie Couric .

Blogs Benedict?

Several weeks ago I wrote that the late Pope John Paul II helped usher the Catholic Church into the information age with daily homilies delivered to people's wireless devices as well as other interesting innovations, not to mention a deep and inclusive Vatican Web site .

Now that Cardinal John Ratzinger has been dubbed Pope Benedict XVI , at least one wag thinks that even more digital means of communication are around for the taking. Writing in a campus publication at the University of Minnesota, Bobak Ha'eri suggests that the Holy See get even more cyber-savvy than it is already.

" I propose weekly online chats with the pope, in which believers and the curious can pitch questions and hope for answers. But I realize a sane person wouldn't want to moderate such a project -- just imagine all the translation and filtering!" Ha'eri writes in his piece, titled " Suggestions for Pope Benedict XVI ." More from Ha'eri: "Of course, the pope could also start a blog. I'm sure pontiffs come up with all sorts of interesting ideas during the day and never get a chance to write them down. Having some sort of papal LiveJournal would be a great way of letting us know more about who he is by posting random thoughts, poetry, jokes and whatever news articles he found interesting. Nothing appeals to youth more than image, and I think the pope could really swing his image in his favor."

There's no telling how serious Ha'eri is; after all, he also mentions a reality TV program with the possible title, "A Papal Life." As for the blogging idea, two words -- Why not?

Readers: What are some other ways that the Vatican can take advantage of the Internet to preserve -- and modernize -- the Church? What about other world religions? Write me .

Meanwhile, there is no shortage of information on the new pope at washingtonpost.com and many other sites. But here is one unique item I located this morning: Barbara McMahon of the London-based Guardian newspaper provides a roundup of commentary from Italian media on the new pontiff. Here is one item that struck me as interesting: " Massimo Gramellini ... believes Benedict XVI will not appeal to the younger generation as his predecessor did. 'Today's young people have an attention span only as long as an SMS or a TV advert,' he adds, saying a pope who reads books and listens to the radio will not understand how to deal with a worldwide audience in today's media-hungry society."

Messaging on the Masai

Kenyan telecommunications company OneWorld International is offering a mobile phone text-messaging service that advertises jobs and allows users to apply through their phones, regardless of whether they're in Nairobi or deep in the bush. "It's relatively easy. All you need is access to a mobile phone with a Safaricom connection,'' Antony Mwaniki , OneWorld International's business manager, told Reuters . Each message costs 3 Kenya shillings, equivalent to 4 cents. Connecting to the Internet through the service would cost at least 10 shillings, or about 13 cents, plus an extra shilling per minute. There are approximately 3 million cell phone users in Kenya, according to the country's Communications Commission. The country's entire population is 30 million.

And speaking of cell phones, lawmakers in Washington state approved a bill that would forbid cell phone companies from publishing customers' phone numbers in a directory without their specific consent, the Seattle Times reported .

Send links and comments to robertDOTmacmillanATwashingtonpost.com.

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