Fast-Food Kids (eBook)

2018 Morris Rosenberg Award, DC Sociological SocietyIn recent years, questions such as what are kids eating? and who s feeding our kids? have sparked a torrent of public and policy debates as we increasingly focus our attention on the issue of childhood obesity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that while 1 in 3 American children are either overweight or obese, that number is higher for children living in concentrated poverty. Enduring inequalities in communities, schools, and homes affect young people s access to different types of food, with real consequences in life choices and health outcomes. Fast-Food Kids sheds light on the social contexts in which kids eat, and the broader backdrop of social change in American life, demonstrating why attention to food s social meaning is important to effective public health policy, particularly actions that focus on behavioral change and school food reforms.Through in-depth interviews and observation with high school and college students, Amy L. Best provides rich narratives of the everyday life of youth, highlighting young people s voices and perspectives and the places where they eat. The book provides a thorough account of the role that food plays in the lives of today s youth, teasing out the many contradictions of food as a cultural object fast food portrayed as a necessity for the poor and yet, reviled by upper-middle class parents; fast food restaurants as one of the few spaces that kids can claim and effectively take over for several hours each day; food corporations spending millions each year to market their food to kids and to lobby Congress against regulations; schools struggling to deliver healthy food young people will actually eat, and the difficulty of arranging family dinners, which are known to promote family cohesion and stability.A conceptually-driven, ethnographic account of youth and the places where they eat, Fast-Food Kids examines the complex relationship between youth identity and food consumption, offering answers to those straightforward questions that require crucial and comprehensive solutions.