Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World

by Bettina Elias Siegel

Overview

Most parents start out wanting to raise healthy eaters. Then the world intervenes.

In Kid Food, nationally recognized writer and food advocate Bettina Elias Siegel explores one of the fundamental challenges of modern parenting: trying to raise healthy eaters in a society intent on pushing children in the opposite direction. Siegel dives deep into the many influences that make feeding children healthfully so difficult-from the prevailing belief that kids will only eat highly processed "kid food" to the near-constant barrage of "special treats."

Written in the same engaging, relatable voice that has made Siegel's web site The Lunch Tray a trusted resource for almost a decade, Kid Food combines original reporting with the hard-won experiences of a mom to give parents a deeper understanding of the most common obstacles to feeding children well:

- How the notion of "picky eating" undermines kids' diets from an early age-and how parents' anxieties about pickiness are stoked and exploited by industry marketing

- Why school meals can still look like fast food, even after well-publicized federal reforms

- Fact-twisting nutrition claims on grocery products, including how statements like "made with real fruit" can actually mean a product is less healthy

- The aggressive marketing of junk food to even the youngest children, often through sophisticated digital techniques meant to bypass parents' oversight

- Children's menus that teach kids all the wrong lessons about what "their" food looks like

- The troubling ways adults exploit kids' love of junk food-including to cover shortfalls in school budgets, control classroom behavior, and secure children's love

With expert advice, time-tested advocacy tips, and a trove of useful resources, Kid Food gives parents both the knowledge and the tools to navigate their children's unhealthy food landscape-and change it for the better.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190862121
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2019
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	790,096
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

BETTINA ELIAS SIEGEL is a nationally recognized writer and advocate on issues relating to children and food policy. Her reporting and opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Houston Chronicle, and Civil Eats, as well as her own widely read blog, The Lunch Tray. She frequently appears or is quoted in national media, including Today, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, NPR, The Doctors, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Parents. In 2015, Family Circle named Siegel one of the country's "20 Most Influential Moms," and she is one of the most successful petitioners in Change.org's history. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, Siegel lives in Houston with her husband and two children.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Preface: A Word About Highly-Processed Food

1. Kid Food

2. The Beige and the Bland

3. The Claim Game

4. Pester Power

5. Copycats in the Cafeteria

6. Just One Treat

7. Bigger Than Obesity

8. Pushing Back

9. Four Wishes

10. We're Better Than This

Appendix

Endnotes

Editorial Reviews

09/02/2019

Food writer Siegel, creator of the blog The Lunch Tray, indicts the food industry for not providing more nutritious meals to American children. Noting that concerns about obesity are just one tiny problem, she writes, “The majority of American children, not just those who are overweight, are eating a poor diet.” The book shines a critical light on numerous practices: advertising that relies on inciting kids’ “pester power” to undermine parents; corporate-sponsored science that portrays sugar- and fat-laden snacks as healthy; inadequate funding for school lunch programs; and the common, expectation-forming practice of giving kids tasty but unhealthy snacks multiple times daily. Siegel summarizes the science of forming food preferences in children and dispenses some advice to fellow parents on planning healthier mealtimes. But her main goal is to guide readers into practical activism aimed at persuading or pressuring food companies and schools to adopt more responsible practices, as illustrated by her successful efforts to stop McDonald’s efforts to distribute a pro-fast food documentary in public schools. Frustrated parents will find motivation and comfort in Siegel’s messages that, collectively, society can make progress in the age-old parental battle against picky eaters and create a healthier food environment for everyone. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

08/01/2019

Most parents start out with the best intentions to raise a healthy eater, states blogger Siegel (the Lunch Tray). From a lollipop at the bank to cookies at the grocery store to sweets as a way to ease the stress of a doctor's check up, temptations are everywhere. Candy at eye level in every supermarket, and fun filters featuring companies such as McDonalds and Taco Bell on tween-favorite snapchat aren't much help either. In Houston, 80 percent of public school students live close enough to the poverty line to qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch meals, thus cafeteria food isn't an option but a must for many. First Lady Michelle Obama's healthy school lunch initiative encouraged the restaurant industry to offer healthful options for children. The resulting Kids Live Well designation sounded great on paper, but many companies maintain the bare minimum by offering just one alternative meal choice. VERDICT A fascinating look at the industry of children's food and a practical guide for parent's seeking to teach their children how to eat healthfully.

Library Journal

11/01/2019

Most parents start out with the best intentions to raise a healthy eater, states blogger Siegel (the Lunch Tray). From a lollipop at the bank to cookies at the grocery store to sweets as a way to ease the stress of a doctor's check up, temptations are everywhere. Candy at eye level in every supermarket, and fun filters featuring companies such as McDonald's and Taco Bell on tween-favorite Snapchat aren't much help either. In Houston, 80 percent of public school students live close enough to the poverty line to qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch meals; thus cafeteria food isn't an option but a must for many. First Lady Michelle Obama's healthy school lunch initiative encouraged the restaurant industry to offer healthful options for children. The resulting Kids Live Well designation sounded great on paper, but many companies maintain the bare minimum by offering just one alternative meal choice. VERDICT A fascinating look at the industry of children's food and a practical guide for parent's seeking to teach their children how to eat healthfully.–Julia M. Reffner, Richmond

School Library Journal

"One of the Best Books of 2019 (So Far)" — Real Simple

"A blueprint for how to raise healthy eaters in a fast-food culture" — New York Times

"Powerful, encouraging advocacy . . . . KID FOOD equips parents with the wisdom and strategies they'll need to raise-and feed-healthier kids." — Foreword Reviews

"The book shines a critical light on numerous practices . . . Frustrated parents will find motivation and comfort in Siegel's messages that, collectively, society can make progress in the age-old parental battle against picky eaters and create a healthier food environment for everyone." — Publishers Weekly

"A fascinating look at the industry of children's food and a practical guide for parent's seeking to teach their children how to eat healthfully." — Library Journal

"Everybody who has children should read Kid Food. And everyone who doesn't should read it, too. Siegel is thoughtful, practical, and fearless-a combination that should worry the food companies now threatening the health of all Americans." — Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation

"With meticulous research and easy, conversational prose, Siegel makes an irrefutable case for changing the broken food system that feeds our children." — Alice Waters, owner of Chez Panisse and founder of the Edible Schoolyard Project

"Siegel is a leader and a veteran in the movement to feed our kids well, and Kid Food is a primer on what we'll need to do to get that done." — Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything and editor-in-chief of Heated

"Siegel does more than explain why 'carnival food' is now the everyday norm; she lays out the specific ways to approach food more positively at home-and in the larger community-to foster change." — Ellie Krieger, cookbook author and host of Ellie's Real Good Food

"Gorgeously written, heartfelt, and deeply compelling. Everyone who cares about kids must read Bettina Siegel's fabulous Kid Food." — Marion Nestle, NYU professor and author of Soda Politics

"Fascinating and enlightening. I will never look at a kid's menu or baby food pouch the same way again-and I'm infinitely grateful for it." — Gail Simmons, food expert, Top Chef judge, and author of Bringing It Home

"Kid Food will help you see how the Food Giants have co-opted our eating habits, and how changing the way kids eat is our best shot at leveling the playing field." — Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat

"Fascinating and funny. A must-read for anyone who cares about our children's future." — Karen Le Billon, author of French Kids Eat Everything

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