It’s been 16 years since the The Food Pyramid was unveiled, with the aim of helping Americans, and others, make healthy dietary choices.

In 1992, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture created the food pyramid. It recommended the number of servings of each food group a person should eat daily to stay healthy. The food groups in the pyramid include: grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, meat, and fats and oils. Today, more than two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese. In 2005, the government, recognizing a potential health crisis, issued new, tougher guidelines on how to get - and stay - healthy and fit.

An updated pyramid was issued in 2005, but it seems the healthy eating message is still not getting through, and poor diet is partly to blame for a decline in life expectancy in some regions of the US.

Majid Ezzati and colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston studied mortality rates in all US counties between 1961 and 1999. They found that the inequality between counties’ rates had been narrowing until the 1980s, when the trend reversed and the gap began to widen again. Although average life expectancy in the US rose steadily over all four decades, the researchers found that it declined significantly in 11 counties for men and 180 for women. Such trends signal a healthcare failure, say the authors.