The original food pyramid was introduced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1992. It was officially called the Food Guide Pyramid and was created to provide a visual guide to healthy eating for the general public. The pyramid divided food into six categories arranged in a hierarchical structure, showing the relative amounts of different food groups that should be consumed daily.
Changing the USDA’s dietary guidelines and visuals like MyPlate (the heir to the food pyramid) does not require congressional approval. The process is overseen by the USDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. These guidelines are updated every five years based on the latest nutrition science and recommendations from an appointed advisory committee.
As such this falls clearly under the aegis of presidential authority. To make a statement and show how serious the administration takes this issue, the USDA should be ordered to release a new “corrected” food pyramid on Day 1, along with attendant whitepapers explaining the changes.
Almost 1/4 of the US population is fed, either directly or indirectly by the Federal government, as such changes to nutritional guidelines at the federal level will cause immediate downstream changes to personal nutrition habits.
There are many other changes regarding farm subsidies required. But the first step is to come clean with the American people and explain to them what a nutritious diet looks like.
tl;dr - release a beautiful food pyramid that actually gives good nutrition advice. Make it beautiful and blast it across the airwaves. Let people see that change is coming.