Kid Food
The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World
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- 28,99 €
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- 28,99 €
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
