Eat the Pyramids American Nutrition Exhibition
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Transcript of Eat the Pyramids American Nutrition Exhibition
Eat the Pyramids: American Nutrition Exhibition
Project Concept and Proposal
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For review and comment
Gary R. Gleason and Yilmaz Zenger, June 2009
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Contents Page
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3a. Food Pyramids Plaza 13
3b. Food’s Inside Ride 18
3c. Nutrition Challenge Hall 21
3d. Auxiliary and support areas 23
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Eat the Pyramids as a standalone municipal destination and alternative models 24
Funding sought in stages 27
Contacts 29
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In 1990, not more than 15% of the population in any US state was obese. By the end of 2006, more than a third of American adults were obese. There is only one state with an obesity rate less than 20%.
This means that more than 72 million people have higher risk for hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke, breast and colon cancer, stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, abnormal menses and infertility.
Compared to normal weight persons, overweight males incur about $170 more annually in medical costs and overweight females incur an additional $495. Obese workers lose about a week of work a year due to weight related illness.1 The economic burden is massive and growing. According to a Rand Corporation study, the cost to the Federal Government is more than $40 billion, about 6% of Medicade and Medicare.2
Among children 2‐19 years of age, more than one in seven are obese and about one in three are overweight.3 These rates are three times as high for adolescents and twice as high for younger children than 20 years ago. This major child health problem will lead to considerably more potentially fatal coronary heart disease cases in adults over future decades4 and today's children may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.5
On average, American adults gained about 10 pounds during the 1990s. To support the extra weight, airlines reportedly spent $275 million on an additional 350 million gallons of fuel.6
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This document outlines and proposes a major new effort to improve what, how, and how much we eat. Eat the Pyramids: American Nutrition Exhibition will be the country’s only large‐scale exhibition focused on our food, eating, physical activity and health.
The exhibition name, “Eat the Pyramids” is drawn from the wide use of the pyramid shape to represent many guidelines for healthy eating in the USA and around the world.
The Exhibition is initially planned as a large freestanding facility in a major metropolitan area that will accommodate more than 100,000 visitors each year. Classes from primary, middle and high schools, families and other groups will experience impressive visual and tactile environments. Highly advanced technologies and design will encourage and facilitate highly interactive experiences characterized by discovery and active participation as visitors learn about foods, nutrition, our bodies and health.
Visits will begin in the Food Pyramids Plaza, a large section where visitors discover unique facts about America’s common foods, their origins, how they are processed and used and their nutrients. They also learn the key components of a healthy lifestyle that balances diet and physical activities. The second major section, Food’s Inside Ride, offers a guided tour, exploration and discovery along and outside the anatomical route taken by every bite of food. The third major section of the Exhibition, Nutrition Challenge Hall is an environment of active linkage of food with health and includes personal tests and challenges as well as the many educational and community services that can improve our foods, food selection, nutrition and lifestyles. Practical, enjoyable “nutrition challenges” with
1 Finkelstein, EA, Fiebelkorn, IC, Wang, G. State‐level estimates of annual medical expenditures attributable to obesity. Obesity Research 2004;12(1):18–23. 2 The cost of fat, David Leonhardt, http://economix.blogs. nytimes.com/2009/05/20/the‐cost‐of‐fat 3 Obesity, US CDC, http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/ 4 The Price of Childhood Obesity, Why the costs could be 'catastrophic' if we don't stop the epidemic now. Jennifer Barrett, Newsweek 12/ 5/ 2007 5 How does childhood obesity work?, David Neilsen, http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/childhood‐obesity‐bmi.gif 6 US CDC Report 2004 in “Five financial costs of American obesity” Tina Peng, Newsweek web exclusive, Aug 15, 2008
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Food marketing Product + Processing + Promotion + Preferences + Portions + Price +
= Profit
positive, observable results offer visitors a permanent link to Eat the Pyramids and support for continued learning and efforts to improve what, why and how we eat.
Using proven principles of informal science education, and cutting edge interactive and display technologies, Eat the Pyramids will add a powerful new level of effective educational support to other nutrition education and promotion activities. The Exhibition will encourage students, families and individuals to make positive personal and group commitments that reinforce or move toward a healthier balance between food selection, how food is eaten and types and levels of physical activities.
Visitors to Eat the Pyramids will generate practical knowledge and challenge themselves either to move toward or reinforce behaviors and lifestyles of good food choices and more satisfaction and pleasure in eating. Collectively decisions based on what is learned and reinforces at the Exhaustion should strengthen the nation’s public health.
This proposal introduces Eat the Pyramids to technical experts, potential stakeholder groups and possible supporters who are related to improving foods, enhancing America’s nutrition and the promoting active lifestyles. It intends to both open technical discussions and generate interest from potential collaborators and funders.
The initial, 24‐month phase of detailed planning and organization of Eat the Pyramids will be carried out by a small team as a project based with the International Nutrition Foundation, Boston, MA. During this first phase, the general Exhibition model, exhibition sections and exhibits outlined in this document will be expanded into full technical specifications, and development schedules. Appropriate organizational, management, oversight and operational structures will be set up. The budgetary estimates for the full Exhibition and the multi‐donor strategy for generating the resources needed develop and operate Eat the Pyramids will be developed.
This proposal seeks $850,000 to carry out the alliance building, planning, and development and to initiate the fundraising needed realize the overall Exhibition.
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America’s productive agricultural system, robust food trade, advanced food processing industry and multi‐faceted food retail and restaurant sectors offer highly varied and relatively low‐cost food choices to most families. Our social safety nets, including major food subsidy programs, further assist many others among the most vulnerable, especially, children, women and the elderly. These factors should allow most of us to both eat diverse and balanced diets and undertake the levels of physical activity needed for normal growth, development, good health, and physical and mental performance.
However, nutrition problems in America have not subsided with the advent of abundant food and increased food security. While hunger persists among the poor and disenfranchised, far outpacing that problem today is that of nutritional obesity and overweight These conditions are causing losses in productivity, increased chronic disease, suffering and premature death.
By 2007, obesity reached levels above 20% of the population in every state but one. Type 2 diabetes, which is directly correlated with conditions of overweight, is now prevalent among children and younger adults.
This epidemic has made food selection, diets, how we eat, and our often‐low levels of physical activity, new battlegrounds for health and health care in the United States. Current strategies to address the obesity epidemic are expanding but there is strong consensus that greater and more innovative efforts will be needed. The new Exhibition will recognize and will complement other efforts in food and nutrition education (See Box 1) While there are many justifications for creating America’s first major exhibition on food and nutrition, Eat the Pyramids has the active objective of improving how Americans eat and live.
Through use of the latest technologies, broad collaboration with food industry and nutrition experts, and sound informal science environments, the Exhibition will provide active more than 100,000 visitors each year with
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Box 1: A few examples of current nutrition education and promotion efforts and their diverse sponsors
• US Government activities at all levels supporting use of national dietary guidelines
o Increased emphasis on appropriate diets and physical activities for individuals and specific groups
• Government‐required nutrition labeling of foods • Active strategies by school systems to improve nutrition
o Changes in school meals, less sugar in vending machine products
o Increasing physical activity for students o “Weight report cards” sent to parents o Use of plates but no trays in cafeterias o Growing use of school gardens
• Legislative action o Ban on trans‐fat use in restaurants o Restaurant menu calorie labeling
active learning on healthy eating and diets that will, in turn, promote growth, wellbeing, and a lifestyle of healthy physical activity.
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Conceptual planning for the Eat the Pyramids recognizes that diverse and highly complex factors contribute to the obesity epidemic and rapidly increasing prevalence of diet‐related chronic diseases. Shifts in U.S. agricultural policies in the 1970s brought increased large‐scale production of commodity crops (corn and soy beans) that subsequently lowered feed prices and encouraged concentrated animal production (cattle, pork, and poultry).
Lower production costs and abundant yields of grains, legumes and animal products fuel expansive product development that facilitated the success of low‐cost fast food, increased restaurant portions, the explosion of sweetened beverages on the market and a wide variety of industrially produced sodium and calorie‐laden snacks and fully prepared and ready‐to‐serve dishes.
Accessible, abundant, inexpensive, easy to prepare, enticing, highly processed food is what many of us now eat. Demographic changes further compound the situation. Many adults in single and two parent households work. Children are involved with more out of home activities. Sophisticated marketing promotes fully prepared meals from highly processed ingredients and meals from fast food outlets. The actual ingredients, origins and processing of many common meals and snacks are unknown by most of those who eat them. Less time is available and the motivation often low for traditional meals.
Sitting down to eat as a family is no longer the predominant style for meal consumption; overall, how food is eaten has fewer norms. Far beyond the traditional “sandwich”, a wide range of food products are specifically designed for one‐handed eating. Many of us eat too quickly to allow normal metabolic processes to signal fullness before additional, unnecessary food is consumed. Chewing skills are seldom well taught, and thus the needed preparation for swallowing foods often overridden, hindering digestion and raising the risk for choking. Consumption of large servings often overtaxes enzyme production.
These facts, that merely touch the surface of the dynamics behind the food selection and eating behavior of many Americans, will be explored within Eat the Pyramids. Visitors of all ages will gain a greater depth of knowledge about many of our common foods, and both knowledge and practical skills about how we eat and how to eat well.
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Eat the Pyramids will link food with common physical activities and exercise through a combination of interactive robotic simulations and personalized dynamic models. “Energy balance” will be clearly explained and demonstrated in many practical ways that can be adopted easily by people of all ages.
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Eat the Pyramids links use, appeal and effectiveness of informal, interactive science, the fascination of food and the “mystery” of food processing and use inside the body. The Exhibition has the following objectives:
• Explain and promote modern foods and healthy human nutrition through an effective, highly popular, integrated learning environment;
• Demonstrate potential healthy diets that lower health risks related to hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers; and show how improving a poor diet can reduce such risks;
• Create and reinforce healthy food selection and eating skills by promoting better self‐awareness and practical knowledge of “why” and “how to” questions linking food and meal selection, eating activities, hunger satisfaction and better health;
• Effectively present the structures, functions, optimum and practical use and care of the human mouth in terms enjoying and effectively processing foods and beverages, while improving and reinforcing common knowledge about the uses and care of our teeth, gums and tongue;
• Clearly present and encourage self‐directed learning around the anatomical structures and functions of the human gastro‐intestinal tract and organs and systems related to nutrition;
• Use well‐proven principles of informal science education pioneered by interactive science museums and cutting edge learning models and technologies in an innovative, environmental‐friendly and energy efficient infrastructure;
• Generate a new positive “buzz” around nutrition, spreading from the Exhibition to classrooms, homes, the media, food sellers, dietitians and nutrition scientists;
• Become a popular, economically‐viable, self‐sustaining community service and educational venture;
• Create and populate new communities of practice with a major interactive presence, serving prospective and past visitors to Eat the Pyramids and promote interaction among them;
• Provide a new hub for communication among educators, nutrition professionals and those developing community, school and family food and nutrition programs.
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The design of Eat the Pyramids fully recognizes and complements the growth, diversity and commitment associated with related efforts to improve food choices and nutrition in the United States. The Exhibition plans to coordinate and collaborate with many such programs and activities and provide a strong foundation of information and learning about the relationships among food choices, eating behaviors and short‐term and longer term biological consequences.
Eat the Pyramids will stress common gaps in knowledge related to foods, eating, digestion and nutrient use. Effective, inclusive, relevant information will support promotion of more positive attitudes and behaviors toward nutrition‐based food selection and healthier eating habits.
In terms of food, the Exhibition will include exhibits ranging from raw products to meals and side range of steps for different foods and meals from farm to fork.
An inclusive approach to themes and exhibit will accommodate both positive sides and constraints of the types of food and how it foods are selected and obtained by Americans. Themed by basic food types, visitors will learn how they are produced, processed, marketed and prepared. Production will range from family to industrial farms and organic to genetically modified foods. Processing will range from the highly technical, multiple steps that
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generate many of common snacks foods, ready‐to‐warm frozen and fast foods meals to far fewer steps associated with fresh produce and animal products. Information on food selection and access channels range will from the inner‐city corner convenience store to the mega supermarket back to the growth of community supported agriculture (CSA) cooperatives and backyard, school and urban food gardens.
The approach behind Eat the Pyramids exhibits on food, eating, and physical stresses attractiveness, interactivity, fun and forward looking, “blameless” information for everyone, regardless of their food preferences, weight or lifestyle. (See Box 2).
The complexity and diversity of human behavior, lifestyles and social norms relating to food selection and consumption are embraced by several Eat the Pyramids exhibits. They allow visitors to explore the positive feedback systems from visual, olfactory and taste organs that often encourage overeating. These “sensory” exhibits will encourage visitors to “test” the impact of sensory feedback (sight, smell and taste) on rejection of spoiled or tainted foods. More generally, visitors will be able to experiment with and test how both attraction and aversion to some food textures and tastes can be modified.
Visitors will learn some initial behavioral steps needed for a highly conscious approach to eating practices and dietary patterns, even while encountering initially appealing but unhealthy foods and meals. Many Eat the Pyramids exhibit designs and activities aim toward simplifying often‐complex decisions involved in food selection and eating behaviors and making them more conscious and purposeful.
Exhibits will take into account steadily increasing scientific knowledge on genetic and biological factors contributing to unhealthy weight gain and chronic diseases. Others focus on biochemical problems that affect food selection, eating behaviors and nutrient absorption. Others explore and explain the influence of food and diet on hypertension, cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
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More than 400 visual elements and 150 integrated interactive displays and activities in three major learning environments are planned. Eat the Pyramids visitors will begin their experience in Food Pyramids Plaza. They will then experience the Exhibition’s second major theme, Food’s Inside Ride. Finally, visitors will move into the largest activity and service area named Nutrition Challenge Hall. Each visit may be tailored to a group or individual’s characteristics, skill levels and interests.7
Visitors will be empowered in an environment of exploration, activities learning and challenge. Groups and individuals will be able to self‐select a broad array of opportunities, pathways and unique vantage points for exploring, experimenting with and learning about food and then nutrition. They will be encouraged to challenge themselves in practical ways to reinforce or adopt healthier diets and active lifestyles.
7 A visit to Eat the Pyramids will often begin well before arrival. Classes and others will be able to use the Exhibition website to pre‐register. They can enter
information about their group or themselves, special interests and their results from pre‐visit projects and experiments. This information will link with a Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) given to preregistered groups or individuals. The RFID can communicate with displays triggering adjustments that tailor information and activities based on the provided ages, education levels, family characteristics and individual interests.
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An average visit of two and a half hours will by no means exhaust the potential for discovery and learning that the Exhibition holds for visitors of different age profiles, education levels, specific family practices, and individual interests.
Food Pyramids Plaza
One of the three major sections of the overall exhibition will focus on the wonder of our common foods Food Pyramids Plaza is planned as a large, multi‐level space dominated by vivid images, sculptured models and high definition, interactive displays about common foods, dietary guidelines and balancing food consumption with physical activity and an active lifestyle.
One section of Food Pyramids Plaza, the “Food Maize” will have passageways organized around eight types of food. Initial planning, includes “Fruit Freeway,” “Meat Street,” “Dairy Drive,” “Vegetable Boulevard,” “Grains Avenue,” Oils Alley,” “Sugar Lane,” and “Fish Fountains”.
Each food passageway will include four areas aimed at “inspiration”, “information”, “interaction” and “integration” around the food. Information included ranges from the foods’ history and development, production and harvesting to major processing procedures and diverse product lines by which they become major American agricultural products become part of our diets. The “interaction” section of the passage will encourage visitors to measure and compare the contribution of various food types to a common diet and to their own. They will also learn the important macro and micronutrients nutrients in each type of food and the affects of processing.
A large central area of Food Pyramids Plaza will focus on many different food guide “pyramids” and other representations of dietary guidelines from the United States and around the world.
Another large area of Food Pyramids Plaza will focus on physical activities and the concept of “energy balance”. Visitors will control robotic simulations that identify energy expenditure equivalents in terms of foods types and quantities metabolized during several common activities, play and exercises (See Project Detail 3a).
Additional displays will introduce and encourage visitors to learn key elements and interesting facts and processes from the broad spectrum of food science and research.
Food’s Inside Ride
Visitors will move from the world of food to the world of nutrition when entering the second major Exhibition area, Food’s Inside Ride. Entering a gaping open mouth with three‐foot high teeth, visitors begin to explore the mostly “hidden” realm of eating and human nutrition. They are surrounded throughout Food’s Inside Ride by an environment that includes the major structures and processes used by the human body to convert food into nutrients and use them for energy, growth and protection.
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In the Munching Mouth visitors can actively learn, explore, discover and interact with human teeth, the tongue, taste buds and other major anatomical features that break up, shape and sense each bite, sip and slurp of food and beverages.
As visitors leave the last area where nutritional choices are voluntary, they will follow a wide sloping ramp around the Munching Mouth and down into the Thrilling Throat. This environment is defined by complex mechanisms needed to safely swallow, and keep solid and liquid foods out of airways and vocal chords. From this point, food is seen moving in a highly automated one‐way channel of movement and processing.
Visitors then enter the large Stomach Exploratorium where they discover close‐up how food and liquids begin their conversion into many different nutrients and waste. Off the central area of the Stomach Exploratorium, visitors can find nooks and channels that focus on how the specific absorption of various macro‐ and micronutrients work, how nutrients are used and stored, and how nutrients affect organs and systems rlated to human performance, growth and health.
More than 30 separate displays and activities are planned for this exhibition section in order to encourage and provide opportunities for exploration and interactive learning around how and where foods are broken into different nutrients and processed by various organs and human different systems.With a small transmitter, visitors or groups may automatically trigger changes in displays and activities based on information such as their age, special conditions and group characteristics.
Adaptive displays will assure the relevance of demonstrations and activities that explain immediate uses of nutrients across several organs and systems. Displays will also show how nutrients link with physical activities and
active and inactive lifestyles (See Project Detail 3b).
Nutrition Challenge Hall
The third major Exhibition area, Nutrition Challenge Hall, will encourage school classes, families and other visitors to move from learning to action. They will explore, learn and be challenged to find ways to put to personal use the experience and information gained in the Food Pyramids Plaza and Food’s Inside Ride.
The exhibits in Nutrition Challenge Hall will promote and seek simple and practical commitments from visitors for better food selection, eating and nutrition practices. The area will support constructive simulations and play, registration for community services and on‐line support that can extend the experience into visitors’ daily lives. (See Project detail 3c).
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The concept and design of Eat the Pyramids have now reached a stage where comments are being solicited and potential stakeholders and collaborators are being identified and contacted. Concurrently, funds are being sought to transition the work completed to date into an organized 24‐month project format of full‐time planning, design, organizational and fundraising activities. As an independent non‐profit is organized during this period, future efforts for Eat the Pyramids will be carried out as a project directed by the two‐person team that developed this proposal.
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Funding is being sought for Eat the Pyramids accoring to phases in its development. The first phase will be 24 months of intensive detailed planning and developemnt. A small, core group incluing consultant will be funded as the project begins collaborating with additional, key stakeholders. A venue and final design for the exhibtion will be selected and technical designs including the overall facility and for the three major sections. All exhibits will ber planned and working models of the first 40 of the more th150 active and 200 passive displays will developed in terms
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of both software and harware. The required organizational, operational and oversight structures will be established and a major resource generation strategy will be defined and initially implmented. (A more complete outline of first phase activities and outputs of Eat the Pyramids are in Project Detail 6, pages 16‐18.)
The first phase of Eat the Pyramids will be organized as a project of the International Nutrition Foundation , a 501‐C3 non‐profit foundation in Boston, MA with projects focused on improving food and nutrition in developing countries and domestically will oversee financial management and assist with administrative operations. (See www.inffoundation.org). Dr. Gary R. Gleason and Mr. Yilmaz Zenger, co‐authors of this proposal, will manage this the first phase. (See additional information in Project Detail 1).
Please send comments, questions and suggestions related to the development, alternative models and funding of phase one of Eat the Pyramids to:
Dr. Gary R. Gleason ( [email protected]) Mr. Yilmaz Zenger ( [email protected])
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Project Detail 1: Proposal origins and authors
Eat the Pyramids: American Nutrition Exhibition will be the first and only large‐scale food and human nutrition exhibition in the United States.
More than ten years ago, Dr. Gary Gleason, an American specialist in social communication and informal learning, and his colleague, Mr. Yilmaz Zenger, a Turkish architect and specialist in exhibition design and management, translated shared interests in food and public health into a proposal for a science museum exhibition, named “Eat the Pyramids”.
Their proposal noted the lack of a substantial nutrition‐related exhibition or science museum at that time despite the known popularity of such facilities and the major emphasis being placed on nutrition education in relation to the 1995 USDA Dietary Guidelines. An informal review found only “The Land” in Disney’s Epcot Center8 with a food‐related theme and only one traveling exhibition from the University of Oregon that focused on nutrition.
In 1996, Dr. Gleason and Mr. Zenger drafted and illustrated an outline of an interactive science museum exhibit focused on food and human nutrition named “Eat the Pyramid”. The concept for the exhibit was tightly linked to the USDA Dietary Guidelines and local efforts to use the Guidelines for nutrition education.
Their outline gained the support of the former Head of Nutrition at MIT, University Professor Emeritus Nevin Scrimshaw. The outline was further discussed with senior nutrition specialists and researchers from the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center in Boston, faculty at Tufts University and the Harvard School of Public Health, senior staff at the Boston Museum of Science and a nationally known exhibit design firm. While there was consensus on the need for additional support to nutrition education and the need for a science exhibit in this area, no core sponsor was ap‐proached, other obligations intervened and the proposal lay dormant for a decade.
In late 2008, Dr. Gleason and Mr. Zenger revisited the idea in light of the urgent need for new tools to address the growing national epidemic of overweight and obesity and the growing interest by in better foods, eating, lifestyles and health by families, schoolteachers, young people, the elderly.
There is still no science museum or a major high technology exhibit on food and nutrition in the United States. However, the current proposal for Eat the Pyramids: American Nutrition Exhibition is far broader in scope, and more mature conceptually, operationally and in terms of design than the original outline from the 1990s.
The proposed Exhibition emphasizes learning about many dimensions of food from farm to fork. Emphasis then shifts to the many dietary guidelines that seek to guide populations toward healthy food selections, eating practices and a balance between the energy in foods and a person’s physical activities. Next, the Exhibition links food to human nutritional processes and effects. Throughout Eat the Pyramids, subtle but substantial efforts are made to promote learning about issues related to the American obesity epidemic and practical ways to eat and live a healthy lifestyle.
Eat the Pyramids will use proven strategies of the self‐directed interactive learning exemplified in science museum environments. A new dimension for nutrition education will be created by using technical innovations in simulation, animated models and virtual reality technologies.
Following up on their earlier work, Dr. Gleason and Mr. Zenger began to develop this proposed design, an operational framework and the organizational
8“The Land” was initially sponsored by Kraft Foods and later redesigned with sponsorship from the Nestles Corporation. The exhibition originally included
a nutrition sub‐theme, a show centered on fruit and vegetable characters. Unfortunately, the show was discontinued in the 1990s at the same time as the redesign. .
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components of Eat the Pyramids: American Nutrition Exhibition during a six‐month period beginning in November 2008 on a voluntary and independent basis.
Dr. Gleason brings to this work three decades of experience in planning complex public health‐oriented educational programs for adults and children. He has designed institutions to improve agricultural extension, designed and taught graduate courses in nutrition communication, intervention program design and nutrition research. He advises governments on food and nutrition policy, communities of practice, communication and social mobilization support strategies to improve consumer behavior. He has worked for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF and Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Mr. Zenger brings an equally long and accomplished career in innovative exhibition design and development, industrial design, architecture; multi‐media design and innovative computer applications. He developed the overall design as well as more than 40 exhibits for the Museum of Science of Istanbul, Turkey. He designed the framework for the Community Health Education Systems (CHES) for use in rural Turkey, produced animated films on effective health communication and formulated proposals for the Niagara Aerospace Museum in Niagara Falls, New York.
This proposal results from close collaboration, between Dr. Gleason and Mr. Zenger, complemented by input, feedback and advice from extremely qualified nutritionists, dietitians, food scientists, staff from major food companies and producer organizations, and specialists in software development. Current resumes of both authors are available.
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Project Detail 2: Exhibition learning strategy and linkage to nutrition education projects
Visitors to Eat the Pyramids will participate in ways that include basic scientific tools of comparison, categorization, measurement and experimentation that encourage and facilitate exploration, discovery, measurement and experimentation in keeping with proven tenets of effective informal science.
Aimed toward a wide range of visitors, the main educational objectives of Eat the Pyramids include the following:
• More and better knowledge and appreciation of nutrient differences in foods and meals;
• A better understanding of how the human body processes and uses nutrients;
• Knowledge and skills that each person can use to improve or reinforce decisions about what and how to eat;
• New, pragmatic information and increased motivation for being physically active in an effort to improve energy balance.
Consensus is strong at all levels that effective nutrition education is needed to slow and correct a worsening crisis of unhealthy dietary habits in America. Health and nutrition professionals, government policy makers, food producers, educators, community leaders and most parents agree that the population at all ages needs to know more about healthy food selection, preparation, eating habits and an appropriate balance of energy consumed and physical activity.
Despite much positive work in this field, there are few indications of significant effectiveness. There remains a substantial need to generate greater interest, knowledge and skills around good nutrition and effectively promote good nutrition as a positive, practical and doable activity.
The Eat the Pyramids Exhibition draws on renowned national expertise in applied food science and nutrition. The Exhibition also draws on the proven educational and learning techniques of interactive science museums9 and the integration of innovative virtual reality.
To assure visitor excitement and continued popularity, the content of Eat the Pyramids will include little known characteristics and effects of seemingly familiar commodities, products and practices, related to common foods, food processing, food products and food contents and human nutrition processes and effects.
The Exhibition will also fill common knowledge gaps concerning the human structures and voluntary and involuntary processes involved in eating and drinking. Food’s Inside Ride displays and activities will include information on how each structure of the human mouth should contribute to good nutrition, eating satisfaction, safety, how food moves through the digestive tract and how the digestive process affects appetite.
Visitors will manipulate robotic simulations that clearly demonstrate energy balance with regard to food intake and activity. The usable energy in common portions of many types of foods and meals will be linked via robots that eat and then perform selected activities in equivalent durations and effort levels.
Effective interactive and adaptive displays of novel, interesting content will be keystones for Eat the Pyramids. Current development in mini‐projectors, high‐resolution touch screen displays, 3‐D animation, robotics, virtual reality environments, accelerometers and a variety of resin‐based materials will be incorporated into the Exhibition.
9 Eat the Pyramids will use principles of informal environments for effective science learning in its displays and activities that: • Experience excitement, interest, and motivation to learn about real natural phenomena; • Generate, understand, remember, and use concepts, explanations, arguments, models and facts related to food science, human anatomy and
metabolism, and nutrition; • Manipulate, test, explore, predict, question, observe, and make sense of the food and nutrition through age relevant, interesting, and entertaining
activities to be carried out individually or in groups; • Reflect on science as a way of knowing; on processes, concepts, and institutions of science; and on their own processes of learning about phenomena;
and • Participate in scientific activities and learning with others, using scientific language (food science, anatomy, digestive and metabolic functions) and
tools (measurement, experimental processes). Source of “principles” Learning Science in Informal Environments: People, Places, and Pursuits, Bell, P; Lowenstein, B.; Shouse, W.: Feder, M.A. (Eds.),
National Research Council ISBN: 978‐0‐309‐11955‐9, (2009) www.nap.edu. (Executive Summary) Committee on Learning Science in Informal Environments.
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The proposed result will be a powerful learning environment that fills widespread knowledge and learning gaps in areas that are important to individuals, communities and the nation. Its unique presentation and activities will generate learning about nutritional characteristics of common foods, from their commercial production, processing and marketing to their consumption, processing and use by human bodies.
Eat the Pyramids will combine information, entertainment, active learning and participation to create a rich environment of new knowledge about food and nutrition. The Exhibition will promote nutrition knowledge and related skills that can be used as positive, everyday, practical guides for food selection. It will promote how best to eat food and how food consumed can be effectively balanced with energy needs based on physical activities.
The Exhibition will facilitate a stronger perceptual linkage between foods and nutritional qualities, and bring vivid clarity to the impact of what we humans eat on our survival, growth, development and health.
Adaptive displays and activities
Another key to the design of both the overall Exhibition and displays will be the use of dynamic technologies that allow displays to adapt in terms of both content and complexity to the levels and interests of different types of visitors and groups. The nature of food and nutrition makes adaptive displays important. Beyond a limited set of universally relevant principles, the relationships between specific foods, diets and healthy diets depends on several factors including age and lifestyle. To be relevant, displays of human biologic structures and processes associated with nutrition needs will be able to be adapted to match characteristics of various age and other demographic groups and to visitors with special needs. To the extent possible, many displays will also be able to model diets and lifestyles selected by a visitor.
The Exhibition will meet such challenges by adding to the depth of information in displays and through software capable of building models based on visitor participation and information input. Pre‐visit registration web channels on the Eat the Pyramids website will allow visitors and groups to provide the Exhibition with specific information to feed into the Exhibition’s database. Using wireless technology, RFID devices will be able to trigger appropriate or selected adaptations to displays and activities as specific visitors and groups approach a particular area of the Exhibition
Aimed toward both education and improving public health
The usefulness of the Exhibition is increased by its potential to support formal and informal education efforts in important areas of human health and activity. While the Exhibition will cover the broad areas of food and human nutrition, all of the elements of Eat the Pyramids will be relevant to the public health challenge of preventing and controlling over‐nutrition among age groups ranging from young children to seniors.
The inclusion and integration of the three major exhibition areas will encourage visitors to link their new knowledge with real life decisions about what they eat, how they eat and what they can do to eat well.
Concept and planned structural details
This proposal has an innovative exhibition design that integrates these three substantially different conceptual and physical areas. Physical components are planned using Rhino design software with feasible structural characteristics for the exhibition areas and environ, as well as key functional elements such as visitor flow, capacity and services. The overall Exhibition environment, in any of the possible forms, will also feature “green” characteristics.
The initial set of more than 150 sub‐exhibits across the three areas was selected based on their relevance to the overall exhibition and specific areas, and potential for interest and participation across a range of visitors (See Project Detail 3a, 3b and 3c).
Visit duration and repeats
Time range estimates for a variety of types of visitors have been considered mainly in the context of the Exhibition as a standalone physical facility. These estimates range from two to four and half hours. Visits and interactions for the non‐permanent Exhibition models and the virtual alternative would likely be somewhat shorter. These details will be worked out during the second stage of Exhibition development.
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Linkage with other programs and activities supporting food and nutrition education
This proposal fully recognizes the nutrition education commitment and efforts of Federal and State agencies, education organizations and many companies and associations involved with food production, processing, wholesale and retail marketing. It also recognizes the growing numbers of nutrition‐oriented community projects and internet services.
Eat the Pyramids will complement, reinforce and possibly help lead ongoing and new programs and efforts. Preliminary endorsements from key stakeholders agree that Eat the Pyramids addresses one of America’s most pressing public health issues and represents a new and bold approach. The Exhibition is relevant to current public health issues, has a unique approach, incorporates links to other nutrition improvement efforts and can act as a catalyst for other activities.
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Project Detail 3: Exhibition areas, exhibits and activities
The major areas of the Exhibition are Food Pyramids Plaza, Food’s Inside Ride, and Nutrition Challenge Hall. There are also auxiliary and service areas including administrative offices, Eat the Pyramid restaurant, Eat the Pyramids store, and a research collaboration area.
3a. Food Pyramids Plaza
Beyond a large entry and guest service foyer is Food Pyramids Plaza, the first of three major exhibition sections. Food Pyramids Plaza is the first central area of the exhibition. Plaza displays and activities will focus on:
• The diversity of human foods; • Foods grouped by nutrient types; • The nutritional qualities of different foods; • Why foods are allocated to various nutritional groups; • How nutritional groups can be arranged to create healthy diets; • Building different amounts of food in various nutritional groups into an overall healthy diet; • The similarity of base ingredients in many products; • Guides to selecting nutritious foods; and the • Importance of physical activity to health.
This multi‐level area and visually compelling environment will contain both floor‐mounted and hanging pyramid and triangular‐shaped panels, which will display images of foods organized by major nutrient groups. These images will be supplemented by surrounding walls of information on a wide variety of natural and processed foods. Interactive panels will further encourage visitors to explore the nutritional components of common foods and meals.
Food Maize: Food types: history, processing and products
Visitors entering Food Pyramids Plaza will find themselves in a dense visual environment with dominated by several themed areas. The first large section will be a series of interconnected “Foods Maize” of passageways, each devoted to the “stories” of the foods found in each of the various food groups.
The section of Food Pyramids Plaza, called the “Food Maize with eight passageways initially will be organized around different types of food. Initial planning, includes “Fruit Freeway,” “Meat Street,” “Dairy Drive,” “Vegetable Boulevard,” “Grains Avenue,” Oils Alley,” “Sugar Lane,” and “Fish Fountains.”
Each passageway will begin with an “inspiration “area aimed at creating an overall emotional sense of the food. Visitors may be fully surrounded with overlapping displays superimpose the agricultural environment of the raw products with current production, harvesting, processing, products and meals that result.
A second area of each passageway will focus on key information about the food type, ranging from the variety within the type and their history, development, production and harvesting to major processing procedures and diverse product lines by which they become part of our diets. The
“interaction” area will encourage visitors to look deeper into the food type and to measure and compare the contribution of those types of food or product to a typical diet, to a diet common to people their age group or to their own.
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The last area of each passage will include displays and models that help integrate each type of food into a food type or group by showing how their major nutrients fit into the human diet and how they interact with the body.10
Additional displays outside these passageways will highlight specific “raw material” foods such as corn, soy and milk, with their myriad of products and ingredients.11
Throughout the “Food Maze”, section of Food Pyramids Plaza interactive models and displays will informally lead visitors toward a section that highlights its nutrient qualities an appropriate “fit” for that type of foods and related products in a healthy diet.
Many of the images and interactive media about the food types will be developed in collaboration with trade associations, major producers of foods. Collaborating nutrition specialists will focus on associated health benefits as well as risks
Pyramids Building: pyramids, pyramids
Large three‐dimensional displays of food guide pyramids and similar guidelines from around the world will be suspended above the central area of the Plaza. A major element of these displays will be the development of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines and the USDA Food Guide Pyramids.12 However, the new exhibition will take visitors well beyond many of the government symbols and nutrition education programs.
Large scale overhead and floor models and displays will include the current food guide pyramid (2010), as well as its USDA predecessors in 1992, 1995, 2000, and 2005. Interactive displays will also be linked with the USDA websites.
Additional images and graphs will demonstrate how more recent USDA Pyramids adjust the recommended quantities of foods from different food groups to the needs of different population groups and those with special dietary needs. Visitors can input information on any food or meal to see how it or its components “fit” into any of the food guide pyramids.
One area will teach visitors about how the USDA guidelines are developed and how the guidelines have responded to emerging shifts in dietary and physical activity patterns. Another area will highlight the diversity of nutrition education activities sponsored by the government, the private sector, community groups and public and private sector partnerships at national, state and community/school system levels.
Food guide pyramids (or similar graphics) will also depict the dietary guidelines of various countries, regions, and age groups with specific food preferences or restrictions.
10 Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies will be able to “trigger” displays with specific information levels for young student groups and
languages as registered groups and visitors approach. 11 Classroom groups and other visitors may prepare for their visit at the Eat the Pyramids website by entering their own dietary habits and activity patterns.
Displays in the Exhibition will be capable of showing visitors' diet and physical activity patterns compared to those of the USDA and other dietary guidelines. 12 Eat the Pyramids will complement but also go well beyond the USDA Dietary Guidelines and its nutrition education support programs ,that use the web
using the web and its regional offices to promote the dietary guidelines and facilitate nutrition education in schools and institutions. Since 1992, the US Department of Agriculture in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services has developed and promoted four sets of Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Each set of guidelines has called for a varied diet based with recommended proportions from “food groups” distinguished primarily by major nutrients. The 2000 and 2005 USDA guidelines add emphasis to portion size, the importance of physical activity and achieving or maintaining a healthy weight. The 2005 guidelines include 12 different “food guide pyramids” calling for citizens to develop “My Pyramid”, as a more tailored approach. Each set of US Government Dietary Guidelines and USDA Food Guide Pyramid has generated wide‐ranging debate on the appropriateness of the food groups, various foods included and levels of emphasis given to various types of foods. The overall “healthiness” the USDA guidelines are also compared with specific diets and the general diets of specific cultures.
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Pyramids and related graphics from more than 30 countries will be displayed, along with information about the nutritional status and the nutrition challenges of each country’s population. Among these are the food “arch” of Canada, the nutrition “pagoda” of China, the nutrition “flag” of Thailand, the nutrition “spinning top” of Japan and different nutrition “plates” from South Korea, Great Britain and Germany. Regional pyramids, such as the Mediterranean Food Guide Pyramid, will also be displayed with related activities and informative touch screens.
Each country or region’s interactive display will include background information on major differences in food consumption, health characteristics and activity levels as compared to the U.S. “Strange” foods and preparation practices will be highlighted for their interest value.13
Food Pyramids Plaza will also display specialized pyramids showing the specific dietary needs for different age groups and those with various health restrictions.
Regulation, food industry and supermarkets
Another area of Food Pyramids Plaza will focus on the food industry, its growth and its role in food safety and nutrition improvement. Examples of the food industry's materials, projects and funded research will demonstrate its role as the largest funder of nutrition information and nutrition education. A sub‐area will be devoted to understanding the process of food labeling and reading food labels. Displays will cover regulated labeling and explore the graphics developed by supermarkets to point consumers toward healthy meals. Activities and simulations will provide solutions to the common difficulties of measuring serving sizes and deciphering nutrition labels on different types of processed and fresh foods.14
Food science and research
There will be a section focused on the direct, practical relevance of human nutrition research. The first will emphasize the network and work of the USDA Human Nutrition Research Centers. The second will emphasize trends in nutrition research using indicators, such as changes in levels of resources for various nutrition areas and numbers of studies published over time. These displays will highlight the former research concentration on malnutrition based on insufficient food, the subsequent shift toward micronutrient‐related problems and the more recent emphasis on the elderly and on chronic disease areas related to over‐nutrition.
Physical activity and energy balance
A large area of the Food Pyramids Plaza will include physical activity guidelines and information behind the recommendations. Also in this area, “food as fuels” demonstrations will use life‐size robots to “eat” various servings of common foods and then carry out common physical activities, “fueled” by the amount and type of food consumed. Visitors will actually be able to see the relationship of specific food servings to specific common activities such as resting, jogging, playing basketball, watching basketball at an arena, watching basketball on TV, normal and brisk walking, yard work, school work, playing a video game, and other activities. Visitors will be able to program the robots with food and activity information specific to them to make the experience more personal.
Exhibit subcomponents in Food Pyramids Plaza
The exhibit areas and sub‐exhibits currently under consideration for the Food Pyramids Plaza are listed below :
13 Although a standard background and component design will be required, these displays will be developed in collaboration with the relevant national
groups responsible for national dietary guidelines for their countries. 14 Nutrition food labeling has become common and is continually expanding to additional categories of food products (such as meat). Nutrition
information and package labeling is improving through a combination of producer efforts and increased regulations. The increase in state and municipal regulations related to nutrition is exemplified by the recent ban against the use of trans fats by restaurants in New York and Massachusetts due to their link to cardiovascular disease. Examples of food retailer's growing involvement in promoting nutritious products can been seen by their development of multi‐factor algorithms with leading nutritionists to help label nutritious products with various symbols through their stores.
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Food Maze ♦ Fish Fountains
Mighty mollusks Farm fish Ocean fins
♦ Fruits Freeway Certainly Citrus Tropical Bounty Beautiful Berries Glorious Grapes
♦ Grains Freeways Wonderful Wheat Only Oats Bountiful Barley Amazing Maize
♦ Vegetable Avenue White for might Seeing is orange Reds Great Greens
♦ Oils Alleyway Seeds Vegetable Animal
♦ Legume Lane Strong Beans Little Lentils
♦ Dairy Drive Milk Cream Yogurt Cheese
♦ Meat Street Poultry Beef Pork Lamb
♦ Sugar Lane High Fructose Corn Syrup Cane
Beet Pyramid building
USDA HNRCs US Food Guidelines 1992,
1995, 2000, 2005 New US Food Guidelines for
2010 (?) Team Nutrition
Special Group Pyramids♦ Vegetarians ♦ Seniors ♦ Pregnant Women ♦ Young children ♦ Athletes
International Food Guides ♦ Chinese Pagoda ♦ Canadian Arch ♦ Japanese Spinning Top ♦ Thailand Pendent ♦ British Plate ♦ Namibian Pyramid ♦ Mexican dish ♦ Mediterranean
Pyramid Physical activity pyramid
♦ Food as fuel (simulations demonstrating activity levels fueled by visitor selected foods and portion robotics human forms on exercise equipment and doing common activities
3b. Food’s Inside Ride
Food’s Inside Ride is the second major section of Eat the Pyramids and is expected to be a major “drawing element” in terms of Exhibition popularity.
On leaving the exhibits, simulations and activities of Food Pyramids Plaza, visitors will begin a unique “up close and personal” exploration of the biologic structures, processes and mechanics associated with eating and human nutrition. Here visitors will explore the route taken by consumed foods and beverages in the body, how they are processed and their impact on performance, growth and health.
Visitors inside Food’s Inside Ride will move along a broad raised pathway over, around and through the three major sub exhibits areas: the Munching Mouth, the Thrilling Throat and the Stomach Exploratorium. Each sub‐exhibit will have large‐scale models, displays, interactive panels showing, and encouraging visitors to explore the interaction of food and liquids with the human body. Functional models and displays will demonstrate biting tongue movements, chewing, tasting, swallowing, digesting, absorption and waste processing. The major areas and sub‐exhibits of Food’s Inside Ride will entice visitors to learn about the critical everyday interactions of the human body with foods by showing visitors the physical details and everyday nutrition related processes only marginally familiar to them. Multiple activities will encourage visitors to explore and test aspects of "food processes”, and how different macro‐ and micronutrients affect human performance, growth and health at each stage of the lifecycle. Nutrition will remain the central theme throughout Food’s Inside Ride.
The Munching Mouth
The Munching Mouth is planned as a cavernous, somewhat darkened environment with an entryway at the edge of large wide‐open lips through which visitors will travel along a full set of 1.5‐meter teeth onto a large pink surface textured with taste buds and extending back toward a large tunnel at the rear. In this area, visitors will explore, interact with and manipulate common but seldom fully understood internal digestive processes. The Exhibition will
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provide a unique, participative view of how nutrition processes work and their short term and longer‐term effects on human performance, development and health.
Emphasis will be on how food is “processed by” and is affected by the mouth and its structures. Active displays will cover problems associated with eating and the mouth, such as choking, gingivitis, tooth caries and taste bud issues. Beginning with the physical characteristics and functions that come into play as food is brought near the nose and taken inside the mouth, the active and interactive models and high definition displays, simulations and activities will include the tongue, teeth, gums, taste buds and saliva.
Visitors will learn how the tongue systematically moves different foods around the mouth, how it contributes to tasting and how it serves as the mouths “mop and broom”. They will also learn how it helps to channel smell, food bolus formation prior to the swallow and voluntary and involuntary tongue control during eating.
Models and interactive displays will include details of human teeth; their structure, how they can affect eating enjoyment and satisfaction and how teeth affect nutrition.15 Visitors will learn about and find opportunities to practice healthy types of bites, chewing styles including how to estimate optimum numbers of repetitions and speeds. Visitors will explore how sugar effects tooth enamel, fluoride's protective effects and specific foods that assist in oral hygiene. Other displays will be devoted to teeth growth and the effects of dentures and bridges on eating.
Displays and activities about gums will include their health and the impact of gingivitis on food satisfaction, teeth and heart disease.
Taste buds topics will emphasize their locations and sensitivity, different types, their protective functions and their complementary interaction with smell. One activity will allow visitors to test whether they are among the 10 percent who are “super tasters”, and learn how this affects eating behaviors.
Visitors will learn about and experiment with saliva gland locations, amounts produced and triggers as well as its composition and roles in initial food processing.
The exhibit areas and sub exhibits currently planned for the Munching Mouth area of Food’s Inside Ride are listed as follows:
Tearing Teeth and Munching Molars ♦ Food processing ♦ Chew styles ♦ Health & care ♦ Young & old ♦ Moving food
Twisting Tongue♦ Swallow prep
Glorious Gums ♦ Eroding roots ♦ Unhealthy gums & taste ♦ disease
Saliva Swirls ♦ Use: digestion begins ♦ Production
Gums & hearts Olfactory Outlook
♦ Nose taste ♦ Bad food patrol
Thrilling Throat
Leaving the mouth, visitors will move along a darkened tube filled with various sounds of digestion, ranging from swallows and gurgles to the occasional belch.
Visitors will find large window panels beyond which food boluses will be entering from above in coordination with swallows. These swallows will trigger a set of complex coordinated “machinery” that regulates the opening and closing of the trachea as food moves past and then restores the two‐way airflows of breathing.16 Below, visitors will see the simulated contractions that move food toward the stomach and other sections of the GI tract, and the
15 Contact with the American Dental Association’s National Museum of Dentistry (Baltimore, MD) is expected to assist in further development the oral
hygiene part of the Munching Mouth. 16 Simulations and large models will show how passages to the lungs and the nasal cavity close as boluses of food go into the esophagus and how food is
propelled by peristalsis toward the stomach and moves through to the lower esophageal sphincter into the stomach.
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complex arrangement of muscles, gateways and valves (sphincters) that generally keep solid foods and liquids moving downward toward the stomach (peristalsis). Visitors will also be able to witness what happens when something goes wrong.
Along the walls and niches of the corridor, visitors will find models and interactive displays and simulations that will allow them to further explore and learn about the processes and structures of the throat. As in Food Pyramids Plaza, many displays and models in the Food’s Inside Ride will have multiple levels of technical and graphic detail allowing educational styles and content to be adapted to individuals and groups.
Visitors to the Thrilling Throat will discover the answers to and gain a new appreciation for the following questions:
• What effect does swallowing (voluntary and involuntary reflex) have on digestive processes and safety?
• What is rapid swallowing? Why are rapid eating and “chugging” bad practices?
• How does talking with a full mouth tax the control machinery of the mouth and throat?
• Why is swallowing poorly chewed food bad?
• What happens when food moves in the wrong direction (reflux problems)? What happens on the rare occasions when food and liquids move upward and why?
• The “sounds of nutrition”
The exhibit areas and sub exhibits currently planned for the throat area of Food’s Inside Ride are listed as follows: Thrilling Throat
♦ Gullet Gorge Choking challenge Swallow prospect
♦ Wrong Way Peril
Stomach Exploratorium
The Stomach Exploratorium will be the largest “internal” area of Eat the Pyramids. General digestion will be explained and demonstrated through large, high definition projections integrated into the environment’s ceiling, walls and floor.
Models and high definition interactive displays in the Stomach Exploratorium’s central area will focus on stomach acid. Activities will demonstrate its formulation and potency, how production is triggered, how acid enters the stomach, and how it affects different types of foods and nutrients. Visitors will be able to control this triggering process by “telling” the stomach about various situations analogous to those when a person senses food, such as passing by a shop baking fresh pizza, coming into a home roasting a turkey, or having a hot plate of homemade food on the table.17
The relationship among foods and physical activities will be a major focus of one area of the Stomach Exploratorium. This area will use models and displays to demonstrate the benefits of a healthy weight at different ages and show the many problems associated with being over‐ or underweight. It will also show how sugars and carbohydrates are processed and used for energy and how they become stored as fat. Visitors will be able to
17 Innovative architecture and design will provide visitors clear and pleasant vantage points high above the slowly churning simulation of digestion portrayed
only faintly onto what appears as the dim lower reaches of the organ. In order not to “overwhelm” visitors with the stomach’s active processes of acid‐based food breakdown and protective secretions of a lining mucous, only a small part of the Stomach Exploratorium devoted to digestion and only a small proportion of the perimeter surfaces will mimic the texture and ongoing regeneration of the human stomach walls.
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Box 4: Measurements in Nutrition Challenge Hall • Exercise and physical activity against
recommended standards • Body fat percentage • Blood Pressure • Glucose (non‐invasive) • Cholesterol (non‐invasive) • Body Mass Index Calculator • Personal Pyramids
compare the impact of different meals and diets on both the short‐term performance and longer‐term health of various body systems.18
A range of displays, simulations and models will be organized around the functions of major nutrient types, parallel to those in the exhibits of Food Pyramids Plaza. Macro‐ and micronutrients will be explored though simulations and interactive displays that will allow visitors to explore and view their wide range of functions in relation to organs and systems and as well as longer‐term impact on growth and health.
The uses of nutrients ranging from sugar, carbohydrates, fats and protein to key vitamins and minerals will also be seen in relation to various dietary intakes and activity levels. The displays and models focusing on micronutrients will emphasize iron, vitamin C and vitamin D. These will include vivid demonstrations micronutrients' importance, including the linkage of iron to anemia, Vitamins A and C to the immune system and Vitamin D and calcium to strong bones.
As suggested above, the Stomach Exploratorium will bring visitors into participative contact with a range of nutritional processes beyond those in the stomach. Channels and nooks off the Stomach Exploratorium’s central area will encourage visitors to explore lower elements of the GI tract to see how different nutrients are absorbed. This area will include exhibits on major nutrients use in normal human performance, how and where various nutrients are stored and how nutrients interact with and affect specific organs and bodily systems.
The entrances to several related exhibit areas will be visually integrated into the “tucks and folds” of the Stomach Exploratorium walls. One passageway will explore the small intestine, its anatomical structures, absorption processes, common behavior and dietary practices related to its health. Another exhibit will cover the internal route through which liquids are absorbed, processed and eliminated as waste. A separate exhibit will focus on the role of dietary fiber and the processing of other unabsorbed food components into waste products in the large intestine.19
The exhibit and sub‐exhibits currently planned for the Stomach Exploratorium area of Food’s Inside Ride are listed as follows:
Stomach Exploratorium ♦ Stomach Works
Acid Baths Switch on – off
Alcohol Direct Mush and Mix Bariatric techniques
Staples Resection Sleeves Bands
♦ Intestinal Fortitudes Macronutrient functions,
absorption, use and stores Fat Fallacies Mighty Muscle `Bold Blood Burly Bones Hearty Heart Vitamin E Glands Galore Bucolic Bowels Liquid Processing
Micronutrient functions, absorption, use and stores
Major minerals Minor minerals Vitamin D Vitamins A & C B Vitamins
♦ Older plumbing Diets and disease Aggravation and irritation
3c. Nutrition Challenge Hall
On leaving Food’s Inside Ride, visitors to the Eat the Pyramids Exhibition will arrive in Nutrition Challenge Hall.
The Hall aims to bring healthy food and nutrition to the personal and group level. Activities, displays and representatives of community groups will encourage every visitor to begin to apply some of what they have learned at Eat the Pyramids.
One set of interactive kiosks will allow visitors to arrange common foods of selected serving sizes and types and various physical activities into “personal” nutritional
18 Visitors and groups will have had an opportunity to input dietary models of their own via the Exhibition’s website, including common diets and meals that
correspond poorly with guidelines. 19 Some displays and activities, including those related to the lower gastro‐intestinal tract, will have multiple levels of information and interaction built in to
assure visitors and groups have a self‐selected “comfort level” related to the levels of detail they are exposed to. `
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pyramids. Visitors will be able to instantly compare these pyramids to USDA dietary guidelines or any other available guideline20 and generate recommendations on how their personal pyramids compare and might be improved.
Another activity will link common physical activities with common foods and meals, showing how selected levels and/or duration of activity equate directly with food types given various processing, preparation methods and serving sizes. Practical tips will be available along with practice on generating and sticking with healthy serving sizes at home and when ordering meals.
Other simulation devices will allow visitors to assess “how they eat” in detail and link to information on how to improve conscious aspects of eating to better satisfaction, enjoyment, safety, digestion and nutrient absorption. All recommendations will be positive and practical and focus on nutritional and behavior improvement for future eating habits, food purchases and appropriate safe and practical physical activities for various ages, lifestyles and physical conditions.
Each visitor and group will find encouragement and practical, personally relevant information. In Nutrition Challenge Hall, visitors can establish the various types of long‐term linkage that will bring nutrition and a healthier lifestyle closer to their daily lifestyles.
Nutrition Challenge Hall will encourage and promote the translation of the new knowledge experienced and learned throughout the Exhibit into real life decisions and actions. These personal and group “nutrition challenges” will extend beyond visits to Eat the Pyramids and become a new or reinforcing step toward improved nutrition and health.
Displays and self‐assessment kiosks will allow individuals, families and school groups to assess and explore their own common dietary practices and lifestyles, and gauge the health impact of their current practices. Interactive equipment in the Hall will range from exercise simulators and Body Mass Index Calculators to blood pressure monitors and new, non‐invasive glucose tests. (See Box 4)
All self‐conducted assessments will link to positive reinforcement or practical recommendations for healthy selection of foods, eating practices and behavior improvement or healthy status. All recommendations will be positive, emphasizing healthy, practical and enjoyable ways to strengthen or build a healthy diet, and activities and tips to help one carry out healthy behaviors. Recommendations will be tailored to age, lifestyle and physical condition.
Many activities and displays in Nutrition Challenge Hall will link visually and functionally to Food Pyramids Plaza and Food’s Inside Ride. In the Hall, teachers, leaders and visitors will have opportunities to follow up and explore at greater depth how foods and eating habits affect the performance and health of classes or of individuals.
Interactive displays in the Hall will also facilitate and encourage visitors to register and join Eat the Pyramids “linked communities of practice”. Such communities will be set up to provide ongoing reinforcement of new nutrition knowledge and skills acquired during a visit to the Exhibition and to support individualized nutrition challenges. Many of the types of challenges will be further emphasized through items that will be found in the Exhibition store.
Nutrition Challenge Hall displays will provide several active links to community and national partners that offer services and programs related to healthy food selection, eating and physical activities. Organizations and companies offering such services may be approached to assist in developing displays and kiosks in other sections of the museum in exchange for their presence as a service provider in Nutrition Challenge Hall
20 Individuals and groups may also electronically “collect” displayed information using a personal identifier provided at admission. Information selected
will be transferred to an electronic file folder created for that visitor or group, which may be accessed from and available through the Eat the Pyramids website.
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Exhibit Subcomponents in Nutrition Challenge Hall
The exhibit areas and sub‐exhibits currently planned for the Nutrition Challenge Hall section of Eat the Pyramids are listed below (36‐50 exhibits):
Better eating services ♦ Insurance and good eating ♦ Teacher nutrition education foundations ♦ Community nutrition services ♦ Community food services ♦ Community Supported Agriculture ♦ Supermarket healthy food labeling
systems ♦ Physical activity representatives ♦ Balancing the bites ♦ How to eat out ♦ How to eat at home
♦ Goals and milestones
Nutrition/Health Tests♦ Base metabolism ♦ Physical activity vs. standards ♦ Body fat percentage (Body
mass index calculator) ♦ Cholesterol test (non‐invasive) ♦ Glucose levels test ♦ Blood pressure test
Personal Pyramids ♦ Physical activities ♦ Favorite foods
♦ Serving sizes
Personal challenges♦ Registration ♦ Families
Individuals Groups/classes
♦ Reinforcements Services
EtPs Communities ♦ Projects
Groups Individuals
♦ Networks & links
Research studies
3d. Auxiliary and supportive areas Museum entrance
The entry to Eat the Pyramids (all alternatives) will include registration of visitors along with standard elements. Electronic registration of groups or individuals will allow for adaptation by exhibit software to education level, age groups, and gender, individual or group interests. The displays can also adapt to information that is provided relating to food preferences, eating practices and the common activities. This information may be used to create individualized visitor options with suggestions for specific exhibits and activities that match the visitor and groups’ areas of high interest and preferences.
Eat the Pyramids store
Products in the Eat the Pyramids shop will support the Exhibition’s themes and objectives by emphasizing products that link with personal and group “nutrition challenges”. Products will be targeted to several age groups, parents and teachers. Products will also serve to both publicize the uniqueness of the Exhibition and promote ongoing interaction with its services through the web based virtual Eat the Pyramids.
Research section
Research that monitors Eat the Pyramids exhibits and the exhibition as a whole will be a critical component of the Exhibition. Monitoring activities will provide a valuable resource for studying consumer knowledge, attitudes and practices related to food, nutrition, deciding on displays adjustment and building effective nutrition education strategies.
Eat the Pyramids garden and restaurant
The “bricks and mortar” plan for Eat the Pyramids includes both a roof top demonstration restaurant and demonstration garden. The restaurant will focus its menu on dishes and meals that allow each diner to “eat a pyramid” based on various food guides. The Exhibition’s garden and publicized linkages to CSAs will demonstrate the potential for many different population groups to shorten the chain from farm to fork and the productivity of urban gardening.
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Project Detail 4: Eat the Pyramids as a standalone municipal destination and alternative models
This proposal includes a funding request for $850,000 over a period of 24 months to complete key planning steps, fully outline and begin setting up needed organizational and oversight structures, and complete the major fundraising strategy needed to fully develop the Exhibition.
Eat the Pyramids was initially conceived as a fully sustainable standalone facility, serving in a major metropolitan area. As such, the Exhibition would become both a “destination” attraction for tourists and a major educational resource for the host city and surrounding region. However, the overall objectives, general format and most exhibits could also be adapted to alternatives forms including “visiting exhibition,” a “mobile exhibition” and Eat the Pyramids virtual form.
The interest, costs, benefits and opportunities for the full stand‐alone facility will be explored in 5‐7 major US cities seen as possible successful homes for Eat the Pyramids. Additional forms for the Exhibition remain under consideration and are open for discussion with potential donors.
Possible alternative forms of Eat the Pyramids are summarized here:
Stand Alone Urban Science Museum
The first and most preferred model for Eat the Pyramids: American Nutrition Exhibition is a standalone museum in a large metropolitan area. This large innovative structure with over 65,000 square feet should become a major new, nationally known attraction and serve as a major new destination for residents and visitors,
This design incorporates a footprint of a minimum of 80,000 sq ft with three levels. A central atrium area would include the Food Pyramids Plaza and incorporate large, hanging food‐guide related sculptures above the exhibit areas.
The entrance to Food’s Inside Ride is on the top level along with a restaurant and experimental green spaces and gardens. A large pedestrian ramp serves the “Munching Mouth”, “Thrilling Throat” and “Stomach Exploratorium” and exits into “Nutrition Challenge Hall” on the first level. The Exhibition entrance, service areas, a museum store and administration have been incorporated into the preliminary design.
The design resulting in a permanently located facility would encourage development of strong community links and collaboration. Eat the Pyramids would likely serve as both a center and a catalyst for activities and local and regional projects. Examples of collaboration follow:
• Municipal and area school systems for regular visits by various classes (with special preparations and ongoing follow‐up on class projects related to healthy eating).
• Nutrition improvement programs and activities with surrounding municipalities and towns that include exhibits in “Nutrition Challenge Hall”.
• Projects such as “nutrition information menu extension cards” could be initiated with local food service companies and restaurants, and potentially expand nationwide.
• Exhibit extensions featuring products of local farms and food processors in Food Pyramids Plaza and the Exhibition’s restaurant would be possible and encouraged. The ingredients for healthy meals developed by local chefs and food service sections of universities, schools and hospitals could be linked into Exhibition exhibits and activities.
• “Nutrition challenges” could be set up with locally known personalities, sports figures, politicians and school system leaders to set examples.
• Nutrition education and related behavior research programs with local universities including collaboration on exhibits in all three “Eat the Pyramids” sections and in monitoring the impact and effectiveness of the overall Exhibition.
• The Exhibition could become a symbol of the host municipality and demonstrate its commitment to addressing the public health challenges related to diet and chronic disease.
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• A virtual component would extend the Exhibition in time beyond that of a physical visit to allow and encourage student groups to prepare for their visit and feed information into Eat the Pyramids that would then be used to set up a tailored experience using the adaptation features of many displays and Exhibition activities.
Traveling Exhibition
Eat the Pyramids can also be developed as a more compact, traveling exhibition that would “tour” for extended periods hosted mainly by major science museums. Major areas would be relatively consistent with the general model but with a smaller number of displays and Food’s Inside Ride would be developed to incorporate a portable theater using 4D EFX seats21 to enhance the experience.
Organization of visits for school classes and other groups would remain a key element of the Exhibition. Such visits will be done in each location and require a team for advance community liaison and coordination to assure that high level of group visits complement normal patronage.
Nutrition Challenge Hall would require model adaptation to assure maximum participation of nutrition related community services. The total visit time would be shorter and promotion of each visitor’s registration into virtual Eat the Pyramids will be important to assure sustained support for the nutrition challenges made by visitors in each location.
Mobile Exhibition
The overall concept could also be adapted into a standalone, mobile Eat the Pyramids that would be vehicle‐mounted using specially designed, interlocking 40 ft containers that could be integrated into the Exhibition’s structural base, infrastructure and exhibit housing areas.
While the core concepts and exhibit themes of the Exhibition would remain the same, this mobile version although the smallest of the alternatives would be able to set up in any location in the United States.
• As in the travelling Exhibition, Food’s Inside Ride would be modified to include a three dimensional motion ride through the gastro‐intestinal tract.
• Decisions on the size of communities to target and on optimal length of stay in a single location would influence the number of displays.
• Similar to the traveling Exhibition, this alternative would require a dedicated community liaison and organizational team who would work in major collaboration with school systems, local food sellers and health agencies in preparation of an Eat the Pyramids visit.
Without the benefit of collaboration with a well‐established science museum staff, that would lead the organizational activities of a “visiting exhibition,” a traveling exhibition team would be more organizationally independent and work more closely with municipal and county authorities.
Virtual Exhibition
Each model form for Eat the Pyramids, including that of a standalone facility would include a web‐based virtual component. This virtual component would allow classes and others planning to visit to register and do preparatory activities visit that would enhance the impact of their physical visit. A virtual component would also allow physical visits of each group and individual to extend indefinitely for follow‐on learning and activities that support nutrition challenges.
Alternatively, Eat the Pyramids could also be created only as a virtual form accessible mainly through the web. To be effective, this alternative would need to fully exploit and use current and rapidly developing high‐resolution graphics virtual, three‐dimensional environments.
21 New models have been developed by Enfield Technologies with Analog Device Controllers.
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The visual and interactive power of such environments could be complemented and enhanced by personalized avatars (computerized models) created by or for each visitor. Student and teacher avatars set up by the actual class planning the visit could interact during a visit. The same would apply to family groups. Individual avatars could also meet and join others not previously known during Eat the Pyramids visits.
Virtual visitors would move individually and as groups as they tour the sections of Eat the Pyramids and interact with its displays. The design elements outlined in this proposal would serve as a guide for development of the virtual Exhibition. Avatars could interact with the several exhibits to show happens when diet or lifestyle changes energy balance in one direction or the other over a period of months or years. Body shape changes and other manifestations could be programmed, as could changes in ability and health.
Virtual Eat the Pyramids could be promoted and/or marketed as a popular educational and motivational experience available 24/7 through the web. Collaboration on the virtual Exhibition will be sought with the MIT Media Lab in Boston as well as other national and international software design and virtual reality centers.
Criteria considered essential for a virtual Eat the Pyramids include the following:
• Retain key elements of informal science learning.
• Include activities and modules adaptable and appropriate for different school class groups, individuals of different genders and ages and families.
• Collaborate with organizations or institutions (including science museums) that support and promote Eat the Pyramids activities at community level.
• Develop and sustain close linkage to other food and nutrition education and promotion support activities and services across America.
The core design runs through each Eat the Pyramids form
The standalone facility remains the preferred Exhibition model.22 The core conceptual design with the three major sections, themes and elements remains across alternatives models. Beyond the core design, the final design of many exhibits including size will depend on discussions with technical collaborators, potential major donors and local officials from the Exhibition’s potential homes.
22 Alternative models for Eat the Pyramids each have major differences in development, and construction, costs and in operations costs. In addition, a
major science exhibition with permanent community linkage would be managed differently from a visiting or travelling exhibition that would serve as a major “event” in several communities. A virtual Eat the Pyramids will be a support component of the other alternatives, but it could also be developed as a fully functional format on its own.
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Project Details 5: Funding sought in phases First phase funding needs
The justification, conceptual outline, description of Eat the Pyramids’ major physical components and the planned activities of the Exhibition included in this proposal have been developed without fees or related planning costs. The proposal seeks funding to cover professional time and the activities needed to move this work into a more formal initial phase of operation required to prepare the overall project. First phase activities are expected to take place during a 22‐24 month period.
One important early activity will be a final decision on the main form for Exhibition. There are major differences in overall resources and differences in the organization, management, and community partners for each form under consideration. Making this decision will involve identifying, contacting and negotiating with major potential stakeholders and exploring various levels of interest and resource potentials.
Once this decision is made, Exhibition development work will include costing the full project and developing appropriate funding and resource strategies. In addition, the team will approach appropriate government and private sector organizations, companies and individuals to generate the full set of resources needed for building and operating the Exhibition. 23
Exhibits and activities
Design and content for the overall Exhibition and for most of the 200+ displays and activities will be completed during the first phase along with a basic model for a virtual Eat the Pyramids.
Management and operations
Plans for the Exhibition’s management, operations, community liaison and external relations will be completed with models appropriate for the alternative model selected.
Credibility and Oversight
A Scientific Advisory Committee is being formed.24 The organizational, oversight and fundraising structure elements needed for full development of the Exhibition will be set up.
Fundraising strategy
A professional multi‐dimensional fundraising strategy will be developed, taking into consideration the substantial potential for private and public sector funds, other resources and strategic alliances with organizations related to the various dimensions of food, nutrition, medical and physical exercise sectors, as well as major Government organizations and foundations. Full development of the project’s plans is expected to generate substantial resources from multiple sources despite the current environment of economic restraint.
This potential stakeholders group is broad with examples of potential collaborators and funders ranging from the private sector including associations of food producers and processers to exercise equipment companies. Non‐profit organizations expected to collaborate and assist range from the American Diabetes Association and American Heart Association to the American Dental Association and the American Association of Retired Persons.
Government assistance sought will range from partial or indirect funding of several displays and samples of educational materials and software. Government resources will also be sought for research components that monitor the impact of Eat the Pyramids. These sources include the United States Department of Agriculture units working on dietary guidelines, nutrition education and the USDA network of Human Nutrition Research Centers.25 The
23 Eat the Pyramids as a new stand‐alone facility in a major metropolitan area could cost $35‐50 million. As a traveling Exhibition, hosted by major
science museums Eat the Pyramids would be smaller and cost approximately $10‐15 million. For a large scale, fully mobile alternative, Eat the Pyramids costs are estimated at $14‐22 million. A virtual Eat the Pyramids Exhibition would cost approximately $8‐12 million. Operational costs are not included in these rough estimates, but the a strategy for sustainable operation will also be designed for the selected alternative exhibition form.
24 The first three members include Dr. .Johanna Dwyer, Director of the Frances Stern Center for Dietetics at the New England School of Medicine, Dr. Lindsay Allen, Director of the USDA Western Human Nutrition Research Center at University of California at Davis and Dr. Nevin S. Scrimshaw, founder of the MIT Department of Nutrition, and a Laureate of the World Food Prize,
25 Agricultural Research Service facilities to be initially approached include the HNRCs focusing on Diet and Aging at Tufts University, in Boston, MA the HNRC working on Child Nutrition at Baylor University in Houston, TX, in and the HNRC focused on Nutrition Interventions at the University of California, Davis.
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Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation are also potential sources of funds and technical assistance.
For the displays section featuring foreign dietary guidelines, work will begin in phase one to secure collaboration with relevant national and regional groups in other countries. The Eat the Pyramids team will seek national contributions that assure an effective and popular display of each country’s “pyramids” or the alternative graphics that promote their dietary guidelines and the science behind them. Similar negotiation and collaboration will be initiated with the groups requiring or preferring different diets (vegans, diabetics, the elderly, athletes, etc.).
Substantial cost‐savings are foreseen by collaborating with groups that already produce visual educational materials on food, nutrition, and physical activities. Eat the Pyramids will adapt such materials for use in various displays and activities. Another area of important, cost saving collaboration is with those producing high‐resolution three‐dimensional models of anatomical structures and animations of relevant biological and biochemical processes.
Project framework and base
The first 22‐24 month phase of work will be conducted and managed organizationally and financially as a project of the International Nutrition Foundation,26 based in Boston MA. Before this period concludes, an American Nutrition Exhibition Foundation will need to be set up as a non‐profit with a small staff, Board and appropriate oversight.
Outline of phase one activities: 1) Recruit a small core group and specialized consultants
a) Establish Eat the Pyramids Design and Operations Project to work with Mr. Zenger and Dr. Gleason. b) Complete designs and technical modeling of the overall Exhibition and each major section.
1. Generate detailed content and technical scenarios for multiple key displays in each section. 2. Develop and integrate virtual reality models of the three major sections and add additional details (entry,
administration, services, store and restaurant, etc.) c) Expand advocacy for Eat the Pyramids with a view to generating wide‐ranging political support for the concept and
essential design from key stakeholders: 1. Organizations involved with education and public education related to nutritional aspects of foods. 2. Human nutrition experts and researchers. 3. Physical activity and public health experts. 4. Major food producers, processors, marketers, and sellers (including restaurants and other meals outlets). 5. Culinary institutes and celebrity chefs.
d) Complete SWOT‐L27 investigation and analysis of alternative formats for the Exhibition and select one. 1. Permanent standalone location. 2. Large‐scale “traveling exhibition” hosted by major facilities such as science museums. 3. Portable standalone exhibition. 4. Virtual exhibition.
e) Set up oversight and collaboration. 1. Recruit and convene first meeting of the Eat the Pyramids Executive Board. 2. Complete recruitment and convene Eat the Pyramids Scientific Technical Advisory Committee.
f) Generate resources for full development of the Exhibition format selected: 1. Develop and begin initiation of a full‐scale resource strategy for the Exhibition’s development, production and initial
operation. (1) Identify potential sources of support (funding, in‐kind, organizational, linkage and volunteer). (2) Prepare for and present to sources. (3) Meet and negotiate with key allies and stakeholders in required technologies regarding the implementation of
interactive, self‐directed learning facilities, including major science museums. 2. Develop and initiate external relations. 3. Develop required intellectual property protections.
26 The INF is a nationally and internationally known 501‐C3 foundation, currently based in the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts
University in Boston MA, USA. 27 SWOT‐L investigation = Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats, and Linkages.
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g) Initiate and develop plans for Exhibition store/products and auxiliary areas (restaurants, research areas, administration, etc.) as allowed by alternative format selected.
2) Exhibit Area Activities: Food Pyramids Plaza a) Plan and make final decisions on the Plaza’s overall scale, design and range of passive and interactive displays. b) Develop content design and technology requirements for the overall Plaza and each sub‐display. c) Collect, select and negotiate for the use of existing educational materials, designs and media, display production
sponsorship, etc. 1. Negotiate with USDA areas focused on USDA Food Guide Pyramids development and network of USDA Human
Nutrition Research Centers (HNRCs). (1) Negotiate with individual HNRCs for participation and dedicated displays.
2. Identify and negotiate participation and funding with major private sector stakeholders (a) Associations and companies associated with production, processing and sales of foods exemplifying major
food groups. (b) Identify and set up linkage and cooperation agreements with projects, organizations, associations and
industries involved in the production and marketing of the various nutritional categories of food (i) Food producer organizations (ii) Food processing industry (iii) Food retailing companies (iv) National restaurant groups (v) Individual companies.
(2) Identify and set up linkage and cooperation agreements with major organizations and firms focused on improving physical activities. (a) Exercise equipment firms (b) Associations for groups with special nutritional needs
(3) Identify, link with and negotiate participation by appropriate agencies in other countries responsible for national dietary guidelines.
d) Develop a virtual reality model of Food Pyramids Plaza. 3) Exhibit Area Activities: Food’s Inside Ride)
a) Complete planning and make key decisions on overall scale, design and range of passive and interactive displays in Food’s Rides Inside. (See Back Note 10 Attachment 1)
b) Develop content design and technology requirements for the overall section and major displays. c) Collect, select and negotiate for use/adaptation of existing educational materials, design, media, and display production
sponsorship. 1. Negotiate with American Dental Association (ADA) and its Baltimore‐based museum. 2. Negotiate with major companies producing products associated with oral health. 3. Explore and negotiate with “pharma” companies with major focus on products associated with esophagus, stomach,
intestinal absorption, micronutrient use, colon health, cardiovascular health and others. d) Complete costing for Food’s Inside Ride development.
4) Develop a virtual reality model of Food’s Inside Ride. 5) Exhibit Area Activities: Nutrition Challenge Hall
a) Complete planning and make key decisions on the overall scale, design and range of activities and interactive displays. b) Develop an initial range of “nutrition challenges” in consultation with nutrition and physical activity specialists. c) Identify potential collaborators on “nutrition challenges” and negotiate support and collaboration.
1. Linkage with current collaboration between ADA and food producers. 2. Explore major nutrition education and improvement projects around the nation and negotiate “challenge” displays
with appropriate groups. 3. Create liaison for nutrition challenges by visitors with special nutritional needs. 4. Develop links with restaurants and restaurant chains for “nutrition challenges” suitable for eating out.
d) Outline and develop detailed proposals for Eat the Pyramids “communities of practice” that will maintain support and linkage with visitors and groups.
e) Specify and plan development of required software and media for displays. f) Develop a virtual reality model of Nutrition Challenge Hall. g) Develop both funding and in‐kind resource models for the Food Pyramids Plaza exhibits and in the Nutrition Challenge
Hall that can be linked well with products of producers associations, food processors and exercise equipment and with Government organizations with food promotion and nutrition programs (USDA).
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Resources for construction and operation of Eat the Pyramids requires separate strategy
This proposal does not cover the resources needed for full construction and operations of Eat the Pyramids. As noted previously, each of the alternative form for the Exhibition has considerably different requirements in terms of both levels and types of resources needed to build and put them into sustainable operation. The partnerships and fundraising strategies needed are also different for each alternative form. Feedback to this proposal from a variety of potential partners and funders will help determine which alternative forms are developed. At this stage, what is definite is fully committed of the authors to effectively realizing Eat the Pyramids.
Current needs are for resources of a period of 24 months that will allow formation of the small, qualified committed team that will settle on the Exhibition’s form, find it a “home base,” complete development and operational plans and develop the strategies and alliances needed for its full realization.
Contacts
Please direct questions, comments, and expressions of interest in collaboration and/or support to Dr. Gary R. Gleason (E‐mail: [email protected] and Mr. Yilmaz Zenger (E‐mail: [email protected]
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©2009 Gary Gleason and Yilmaz Zenger
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