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

As a follower of Bettina's blog, The Lunch Tray, for years, I was thrilled to learn that she was finally writing a book. Given her background as a lawyer, her subsequent work as an (admittedly accidental) activist, and her always thoughtful analyses of the issues she writes about on her blog, I knew this book would be thorough, well researched, and well written. In another writer's hands, this book could've easily been a 200-page screed about the many ways in which our nation's food culture is harming our children, with fingers pointed at all the obvious sources (i.e., food marketers). As a mother of two young children, I'm constantly ranting to my husband about the many ways this culture thwarts our attempts to raise healthy eaters at every single turn---from the well-meaning folks who offer my kids lollipops seemingly every place we go, to schools that teach children about healthy eating but then serve Doritos and ice cream novelties and "carnival food" to them at lunch, to the entire market of "kid food" that assumes children will only eat food if it's highly sweetened, shaped like an animal, or festooned with cartoon characters.But while Bettina does point fingers at all the many factors that combine to create a grossly unhealthy food culture for America's children---and believe me, there are many---she does so with a humility and an almost compassionate acknowledgement that there are even larger forces at work in almost every instance. Take, for instance, her chapter on the school lunch program. I approached this chapter expecting to feel a sense of righteous indignation at the junk they're feeding our nation's kids and actually finished it feeling quite sorry for school nutrition directors. Yes, there are certainly a few questionably bad actors in the bunch, such as the school nutrition director who unabashedly boasted about offering his students a "sweet deal" that included pink frosted donuts, funnel cakes, fried potatoes, and chocolate milk, with a pale little sliver of shrink-wrapped watermelon for good measure (which would be laughable if he were, say, the manager of a Chuck E. Cheese, but is somewhat horrifying knowing he's a school nutrition director?!). In reality, the vast majority of school nutrition directors are genuinely trying to do right by their students, but they're strait jacketed by severe fiscal, nutritional, and logistical constraints. Consider the task of feeding a healthy meal to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children when you have just over a dollar per meal to spend and have to jump through the twin hoops of satisfying minimum requirements for certain vitamins and minerals without exceeding limitations on sodium and fat. Now consider doing this with staffing shortages in too-small kitchens, all the while competing for precious dollars with the junk sold in vending machines and school stores, and you begin to get a sense of what these directors are up against. Because the school lunch program is self-funded, schools rely on student participation to keep themselves afloat, which means that school nutrition directors try to do everything in their power to entice children to buy school lunches. Will putting tofu stir-fry on the menu have students lining up in droves? Likely not. Domino's Smart Slice pizza and chicken nuggets? Now that's a much safer bet.I'll admit that I often feel overwhelmed and hopeless when it comes to battling the Kid Food culture in this country, but Bettina offers numerous suggestions for staying the course and ways to be an effective advocate at the local level. Bettina acknowledges that changing the food culture in our country is a steep uphill climb, but she strikes an optimistic note, reminding us that the collective force of parental political will can compel food companies to adapt and can drive much-needed policy changes, and pointing to the numerous areas in which progress has already been made. I know that people like me, who already agree with everything Bettina is saying, will flock to this book, but I fervently hope that those who are skeptical of or opposed to federal-level attempts to change food policy will read it, too, and see the many benefits of an improved food culture that we can hopefully all agree on, regardless of party.

Just in time for kids’ favorite holiday Halloween, when even the most restrained parents may have found themselves crossing over to the dark side, the public health crusader Bettina Elias Siegel has released her long awaited book- ten years in the making- KID FOOD: The Challenge of feeding children in a highly processed world.The work is remarkable in many ways, most notably because it is a broad overview of the cluttered and mine-filled kid food landscape. It identifies the challenges and potentials for triumph that ordinary families have in the obesogenic environment. In BEAUTIFUL, and VERY ACCESSIBLE prose, Bettina pulls the curtain on the nefarious industry practices of advertising directly to children, taking advantage of exhausted and wary parents and using cartoon characters and other enticements to lure the most vulnerable to the least healthy options.Even the most media-savvy, well-intentioned parents find themselves in the crosshairs when feeding their young kids. Consider the challenge of cooking scratch-based home-cooked meals when elementary school palates are accustomed to chicken nuggets and pizza for lunch (chocolate milk, too), doughnuts and oreos for birthday parties and Mister Softee as an after school treat. Steamed broccoli and roast chicken just don’t have the same allure to this crowd.For many decades consumer packaged goods companies like Coca Cola have opaquely poured millions into shifting the obesity paradigm to put the onus on individuals, rather than corporations (they have done the same with recycling as Sharon Lerner reports in the Intercept). Thanks to a sustained spotlight on sponsored research by public health figures like Marion Nestle the tide is shifting and consumers are growing more interested in transparency and the food system. But can it come quickly enough?As big trade groups like the Grocery Manufacturers Association disband and voices like Bettina’s propel this critically important segment of the food movement to the spotlight, we are empowered to demand reforms in school food and the broader environment. And there is hope for our kids, who know we are fighting the good fight.This book is a MUST-READ, and not just for parents, but for anyone who eats!

This book is a great primer for those new to these issues and the last partbof the book gives a lot of resources like cookbooks and website addresses and such. This book, I feel, is also more geared towards parents of younger children, not teens, which is fine, better to catch the problem when they are young. For me personally I did not ge much new out of this book, but this is because I am already quite well versed in these issues like marketing to kids, the deception of healthier choices ("an organic Oreo is still an Oreo" is a saying I have always loved that came from Jeff Leach), and so on. I had hoped for more solutions, especially to the school lunch issue, but I don't blame her for not really having a solution to that one. I guess I know deep down the only real hope for that lies in a major overhaul of the ag bill, and it also has to start with parents at home when kids are young to condition them to prefer or at least like and be used to better-for-them foods and to not always expect "kid" and processed foods. Anyway, if you are new to the issues surrounding our food supply, food marketing, and so on, and how these pertain to feeding kids, and if you are a parent of younger children, then is is an excellent book to start with, but for me it was just review, so four stars for "like".

Just ok, accurate picture of the situation but no offers any alternative or solution