Kid Food doesn’t come out until November 1st, but I’ll gladly share a spoiler here: the penultimate chapter of the book lays out my “Four Wishes” for changing our children’s food environment, one of which is the “inoculation” of our kids against the food and beverage industries’ aggressive marketing.
By “inoculation,” I’m referring to efforts—akin to youth anti-tobacco campaigns—which show kids how they’re being manipulated for profit; once the curtain is lifted on these two industries’ predatory tactics, their marketing messages tend to lose much of their force.
I’ve told you before about a few such efforts, such as a 2012 teen rap video called Unjunk Yourself and a compelling 2016 study (also discussed in Kid Food) in which teens’ food choices improved after reading an exposé about food companies’ addictive flavorings and misleading health claims. And then there’s my own free, rhyming video, Mr. Zee’s Apple Factory, which I produced in 2013 to inoculate younger children against food marketing and to teach them about the harms of highly processed food.
But all of those efforts pale in comparison to this fabulous new video I spotted yesterday on Twitter. It was just released by Bite Back 2030, a promising new health campaign in the UK spearheaded by chef and advocate Jamie Oliver and a team of teenage activists.
You won’t regret taking two minutes or so to watch this video. Then please share it with any kids, teens, and young adults in your life!
“Everyone who has children should read Kid Food. And everyone who doesn’t should read it, too.” — Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation.
Look for my new book, Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World — on sale November 1st, and available for pre-order now! For more information, visit bettinasiegel.com.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2019 Bettina Elias Siegel