The Problem With Kid Food In and Out of The Lunchroom

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I am Dr. Nicole, and on today’s episode, we’re talking about how the food industry has impacted children’s health. It’s a subject I’m passionate about, the connection between food and both physical and mental health is so strong. We’ve covered this topic in many different ways in past episodes of the show, but what we’ve seen is over the past few decades, children’s food intake has shifted dramatically towards less healthy food, there are a lot of reasons for that, and it’s had significant consequences for their health. I was excited, when last year I came across a blog that focuses on this topic, called The Lunch Tray. It’s written by Bettina Siegel and she focuses on the many different facets of this problem. So when I found out that she had a new book coming out, it just came out in the last month, called “Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children In A Highly Processed World”, I knew that I wanted to bring her on the show to talk with us about what’s in the book and how we can all be more informed as parents, so let me tell you a little bit about Bettina. 

She’s 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 on, or is quoted in national media, including Today, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, NPR, The Doctors, the Washington Post, 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. It is such a thrill to have you on the show today, welcome!

Bettina Siegel:

Thank you so much for having me!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

I’ve been really looking forward to this conversation, I’m excited the book is out! I have been working my way through reading it, it’s fantastic, and I really think that our listeners are going to enjoy hearing what you have to share. In reading your bio and reading more about you on your blog and in the book, you have an interesting background. You certainly did not start out your career in things related to food policy or these kinds of things. Give us kind of a snapshot of how did life take you in this direction to be doing this kind of work today?

Bettina Siegel: 

Well, as you said, this really was a completely accidental, unexpected path for me and in fact, as you mentioned, in my bio, I’m a lawyer, and for a fairly large portion of my 10-year career, I was actually working for big foods, so I really have had this kind of 180. I think the short answer to that is I became a mother, and I think as many of your listeners can relate, you really start to see our food system and our food environment when you become responsible for feeding your children. So that was probably the first kind of pivotal moment for me. More specifically, in 2010, I became involved in school food reform here in Houston, where I live, Houston public schools. And that too, was quite eye-opening and pivotal for me, and I really started to want to share what I was learning with other parents, and since at that point, I was starting to explore freelance writing, it just became a natural outlet to start the blog and talk about school food and also all the other frustrations I was feeling as a parent trying to raise healthy eaters. And that blog is really what set me on this most unexpected life path. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, and I was reading in the book, you share about how that came about, being on this committee at your kid’s school, and I think for so many of us, as parents, we just tend to be unaware of how that whole system works, right? How it is that the foods that are served in schools come to be the things that are served, and you made a really good point in the book, I thought, about how those of us who have the ability to send kids with their own lunches and foods, we tend not to think as much about the fact that there are so many kids who rely on what’s served in school as their nutrition and you know, whose families maybe don’t have choices. So these become really important systems-level issues for us to address when we’re thinking about children and food and health and all of that.   

Bettina Siegel: 

Absolutely, I think one of the most eye-opening things I learned at my very first meeting in Houston was that over 80% of the families in my district rely on school meals, they’re economically dependent on them, and that statistic shocked me, but it’s actually quite common in most big, urban areas and elsewhere around the country. So as you said, it really becomes a critical issue in terms of how we’re feeding millions of children everyday. Something like a little over 30 million children eat school meals and about 21 million of them do so out of an economic need. So if we can get school meals right, we actually are making quite a big difference in the food environment for so many American children. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Such an excellent point. I want to dive into — so many things to talk about with the book. We’ll see what we can get to in our time together, but I want to start with this issue of highly processed food, because you make some important distinctions about that and talk about why you focus on that as being such an issue, so I’d love to have you talk a bit about how you define highly processed food, and why that is so problematic?

Bettina Siegel: 

I think it’s really good to talk about that because you don’t want to just condemn processed food across the food. I mean when you think about it, a can of cooked black beans is processed food, and I think most of us really appreciate the efficiency and food safety that we get from processing. So I’m certainly not condemning all processed food, but there is this category, and I use a definition in the book that was developed by someone else named Carlos Monteiro in Brazil. He calls it ‘ultra-processed’ food. I call it ‘highly-processed food’, but it’s basically those foods that are at the far end of the processing spectrum and the reason why we really ought to be worried is because more and more studies are coming out now that really are showing a very clear correlation between the two. I think it would not be appropriate to condemn all processed food. A good example is like bagged salad greens or canned beans. Those are processed foods that actually help us to eat healthier because they’re so convenient. So in the book, I’m careful to use a definition of what I call ‘highly-processed food’, other people call it ‘ultra-processed’ food. It’s really those foods that are at the far end of the processing spectrum. They typically have 5 or more ingredients, some of those ingredients are often themselves industrially processed. The reason why we should care about that portion of the foods available to us is because there have been a growing number of studies that actually have found a clear correlation between diets high in ultra-processed food and all kinds of diseases — chronic disease, or even just overall early mortality. 

And then there was another study that came out in the last few months that was fascinating, in which a researcher named Kevin Hall had a group of adults live in isolation for a month and for two weeks of the month, they ate a mostly whole diet. For the other two weeks, they are a highly-processed diet. But the really interesting thing was those two diets were matched on a nutrient level. So the calories were the same, the fat was the same — and at the end of the day, when the adults were eating the highly-processed diet, they typically ate 500 more calories a day and gained two pounds during those two weeks. So that is a really small study, but a really intriguing finding that I think just provides more evidence that we really ought to be cautious about how much of this highly-processed food we are eating and feeding to our children. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, that was such an interesting study that really does spotlight that it’s not just about calories or about how much food — we really do need to be thinking about the quality of the food and what’s in the food. And I think this idea of highly-processed is an important area to focus on, as you said, as a parent, I buy the bagged carrots, or as you said, the salad greens — there are things like that that make eating healthy convenient, but when we look on those labels, we’re seeing the ingredient of carrots or black beans. And you’re talking about these highly-processed foods where we look at the ingredient label and there’s just this laundry list — many things that we can’t pronounce, things that clearly are chemical additives and so that really, I think, is an important thing to hone in on, and it allows people to distinguish, right? Because that’s one of the challenges, parents go, “What do I even feed my kids? How do I figure out what’s going to be okay and what’s not?” So I think defining what highly-processed means is helpful.

Bettina Siegel: 

Yes, definitely.  

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

You focus on this in the book and you focus on it in relation to kids. I mean the reality of it is there is such a high percentage of people, adults included, walking around not eating anywhere near what we might consider a healthy diet. You focus specifically on children. I’d like to have you talk about that. 

Bettina Siegel: 

That was, I think, a really important point to address in the book. We’re all eating, statistically, a pretty poor diet in America. So why focus just on kids? And I think there are a lot of different reasons. I mean first of all, just physiologically, children are growing and they’re growing very rapidly, so obviously, what we feed them is going to, by necessity have some impact on their growth and long-term health. Psychologically, children are different from adults, and I think that’s really important when it comes to food marketing. We are all susceptible to food marketing or companies, we spend money on it. As much as we think we can resist it, it’s obviously very powerful and effective. But when you’re talking about children and especially young children, it’s really a whole other ballgame. They really don’t have the cognitive ability to even understand what advertising is at a young age. They don’t get that they’re being persuaded. And in fact, at a really young age, they can’t even distinguish between commercials and the rest of what they’re watching. So children are really sitting ducks for marketers, and they are just absorbing what they learn, and what’s so troubling about that is food and beverage companies are collectively spending close to $2 Billion every year just to market to children, on top of all the other billions they’re spending to market to us. And we know that the vast majority of the foods and beverages that are being advertised are not healthy, only a tiny fraction are healthy. So that’s another reason to worry specifically about children. 

Another issue is the fact that children’s food preferences are being formed in childhood and so what we feed them in those early years really can, unfortunately, influence their long-term eating habits. And then I go through other issues in the book, where kids are specifically or particularly kind of in the crosshairs. They’re consuming more sugar than adults are. As much as we’re overeating sugar, they are really getting bombarded by sugar. They tend to be given juice much more frequently during their day than adults will get juice and that’s an issue related to sugar. Just all kinds of things like that. I think there are just many reasons why children particularly are worthy of our concern and our care. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, I would agree and for me, what I see is that when we can start to help people make children make shifts and we can do things that impact kids, that’s being a bit more proactive, starting to get ahead of the problem because those children then grow into adults who make different choices and then raise their children in healthier ways, so I think it is so valuable to focus on these things in relation to children and as you said, so much research has come out now, and more and more all the time linking eating these heavily processed diets to not just the physical health issues of things like obesity and diabetes, but mental health issues and brain functioning too. Everything from learning problems to anxiety, depression, those types of things. So to really look at this for kids, to help get them on a better track to being more proactive about this stuff, I think is so important. 

Bettina Siegel:

Absolutely. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

So you write about so many fascinating things in the book. You had already been doing this work and really understanding a lot of this prior, but I am curious, what were some surprising things you learned in writing — did anything stand out to you? Like “Wow! I didn’t know that!”, or “Wow! That’s something people really need to understand!”

Bettina Siegel: 

Well, one thing that really surprised me and troubled me was — we know, we have the statistic that 1 out of 3 children today are overweight or obese. So what I really want to know is what’s going on with the other — the 2 out of 3 children who are of normal weight. Are they doing fine, are they okay? And it was actually not that easy to kind of quantify — like how can we evaluate the diet of all American children? But I found this study that the American Heart Association had done in 2010, and they looked at federal dietary data of kids aged 2-18 and they compared what they were eating to their — it’s called their “Healthy Diet Score” which has 5 measures on it. To hit all 5 measures and have an ideal diet would be hard for even adults, but to have an intermediate level diet, you only had to have 2 of these 5 factors. On that basis, 91% of children have what is considered a poor diet, and only about 9% had an intermediate diet, and then just a teeny fraction like half of a percent had an ideal diet. So that was really troubling, and I actually went back to the American Heart Association and said, well, school meals have improved since then, maybe it is better now? And in fact the new data that they had was pretty consistent. So the bottom line is children in America are not eating well, regardless of whether that’s producing excess weight, and I think that is something that was very surprising and troubling. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah. And I think that is an important distinction because oftentimes, people equate healthy or unhealthy eating with weight status. And people will say, “Well, my kids aren’t overweight, so it’s okay.” It’s like the quality of what we’re eating impacts a lot more than just a number on the scale, than just the weight category that our kids fall into, so I think it’s really valuable that you asked that question and went back and looked at that because certainly, it’s about more than just whether our kids are obese or not. 

Bettina Siegel:

Exactly, in fact, I very consciously waited until chapter 7 of the book to even mention the word obesity, and the chapter is called ‘Bigger Than Obesity’, because I think just as you said, I think we get very distracted by weight — and I don’t mean to minimize the very severe health crisis that is the childhood obesity epidemic, but I think then, we might kind give a free pass to everything else, and that really isn’t appropriate, so I interviewed a lot of experts in that chapter about, just as you mentioned earlier, how my diet affects behavioral concerns, attention, mood, sleep. And also, there is this issue of having fat internally. So you may appear lean, but internally, if you have fat on your organs, as you, I’m sure, know — that has all kinds of severe health consequences. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Such an important point that a child or an adult can look healthy. You look at them and you say, well that person is not overweight, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have excess fat, particularly around organs and things on the inside, and a lot of people don’t realize that. 

Bettina Siegel: 

Exactly. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

I want to circle back to — You started to touch on issues with the food industry, the highly processed food industry, the issues of advertising to kids — I find this such a frustrating issue both from the standpoint of a professional who works with families and kids around these issues, but also a parent of four kids myself. You know, I’ve tried to think back about my own experience with advertising and things when I was little. Is it just my misperception? I feel like this issue has gotten worse, and maybe it’s just because now we are in a 24/7 tech-connected culture where these messages are bombarding kids from more avenues. Like I grew up, we had a TV set, right? That was the primary way, maybe some magazines, things like that — I mean what’s your take on that? Has this become a more prevalent problem in terms of children now being bombarded with more of these messages than ever before? 

Bettina Siegel:

I think that’s such a good question, and I think the answer is yes, because unlike when we were little, now there’s all this digital technology, and there are several reasons why that is problematic. First of all, it’s much cheaper, which means that companies can more effectively bombard your children, they get more bang for their back then they do when they advertise on television, and that’s not to say they’re not still advertising on television and doing all the other things they did when we were kids like characters on product packaging and in-store displays and all the toys in fast-food meals and all those other ways they kind of grab kids’ attention. But now, we’ve got these digital technologies, so children are being reached through their smartphones and their smart pads, and another reason why that’s really problematic is, as we know, parents can not monitor what’s going on on their kids’ phone, the same way you could walk past the TV or be watching TV with your child. So they know that this is a very effective way to reach children, bypass parental oversight — and then a third reason why digital technology is really problematic is because it’s very immersive. So kids can often be interacting with a brand for a long period of time like in a game, or they might not even really understand that it’s advertising — like when they see an influencer in their social media food touting a product. That is very powerful, and they may not even understand that that’s advertising. So I absolutely agree with your premise, which is — I think this problem is worse than it was when we were little. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, and you believed that this is such a big problem. I mean you really are an advocate for a ban on junk food marketing directed at kids, right?

Bettina Siegel:

Absolutely. I think that when parents first hear that, it’s almost outlandish, like “What? They’re not going to advertise to my kids?” We’re so used to our kids being bombarded, we’re used to being pestered by our children in the supermarket, it’s just part of being a parent in America, so I really wanted to float the idea that this could be banned. And I gave an example of Chile, which recently passed legislation, which just actually did that. And it’s to such a degree that when you walk past the cereal aisle now in Chile, you will not see Tony the Tiger on the box of Frosted Flakes, they’ve taken it to that level, no cartoon characters on the packaging, no advertising to children. And I just read a study about 3 days ago, it is proving effective and that is something that we could have here, admittedly, it will be incredibly difficult with food industry lobbying, but if parents on both sides of the aisle fought for that, I do believe we can achieve it here as well. I think parents just don’t realize it’s even a possibility. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think that’s so true. We’ve just become so indoctrinated to this, it’s just part of our culture, this is how it is that it doesn’t even strike people that oh, we could make changes with that. That is something I use with older kids and adolescents in talking about these issues because they, when they understand what’s going on with that — teens, especially, really get sort of aggravated and frustrated, like “Oh, these companies are trying to make my decisions for me or trying to influence me.” I think talking about these things, especially with older kids, is really valuable. Help them open their eyes to what’s going on and how they may be influenced by these things. 

Bettina Siegel:

I can not agree more, I’m a huge fan of what I call inoculation, which is exactly that. It’s just like we did with tobacco. When you show kids, even little kids, grade school, let’s say and certainly teenagers, how the industry is manipulating them, and how the industry is very much profit-motivated and it’s at the expense of their health — it really does open their eyes and it really can reduce the power of that advertising. I give some examples in the book of various campaigns that have very effectively done that. There have been studies that show that kind of messaging is very effective, particularly with teenagers. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, having the conversations, I think, is so important. So we recognized that big food industry, the highly-processed food industry plays a huge role in this, in terms of what our kids are exposed to, what they see out there, you mentioned influencers, I think that’s a big issue now too, what kids see other kids and people they idolize eating and drinking — but it’s not just the processed foods industry, and you’re real clear about that in all of your writing too. I want to shift the focus and talk about how schools impact this, because we started out talking about the school food program, school lunch, school breakfast programs, those kinds of things, but as a parent, I find that there are ways that these food issues creep into schools that go way beyond just what’s served in the cafeteria. And I’ve had my own frustrations and many of the families I work with have had frustrations over the years with trying to instill healthy ways of thinking about and understanding food in our kids, sending food that’s healthy, only to feel somewhat undermined by a lot of common practices that go on in schools even outside the cafeteria, using food as rewards, parties, all of these kinds of things where our kids are being exposed to ideas about and ways of using food and consuming food that may be really are directly opposed to what many of us want our kids to be doing. 

 

Bettina Siegel:

That, I think, was one of the main reasons why I started The Lunch Tray. It’s that feeling of why am I being thwarted by my child’s school? And again, it can be stuff going on outside the cafeteria. I actually have a chapter in the book called “Just One Treat” where I take a hypothetical child, maybe a 4th grader through her day, and show the reader — the truth is I don’t really need to show parents because they know this all too well: All the instances in a child’s day where they might be offered or plied or sold unhealthy food for all different kinds of reasons and some of those don’t take place at school, many of them don’t. But many are in school, just as you said, so there is the issue of candy rewards, which still persists, it’s surprising but that practice still exists. Unhealthy holiday parties and birthday parties. The whole idea of birthday cupcakes. There can be a lot of kids having a birthday in an overcrowded classroom, and if they all bring in a sheet cake or cupcakes, that adds up. I talk about junk food fundraising, which is still an issue in this industry. The healthy hunger-free kid’s act, which is the legislation passed during the Obama administration to improve school food, it actually essentially bans junk food fundraising, but then allows states to set up any number of exempt days where junk food fundraising food can be sold. So some states have said, “No, we’re never going to!” But many states have just used that loophole to the fullest and junk food fundraising is still very much a reality in those states. It’s just really unfortunate because that is just another way that kids diets get undermined, and it also is bad because it makes it harder for the school meal programs to serve healthier food if junk food is being sold right down the hall, you know?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah. Excellent point. I think the issue that food as a reward — I don’t think that parents realize how often this goes on, and particularly children with more significant developmental disabilities, behavioral impairments, many of these children are in classrooms that are set up around reward and punishment kinds of systems to manage their behavior, which that’s a whole other conversation about the lack of effectiveness of that in general, but something for parents to be aware of, food and candy reinforcers are very common. I see many kids still who come into my clinic who day in and day out, one of the mainstays of behavior management that are used in those classrooms is the rewards, the skittles, the M&M’s, the Goldfish Crackers, the Starburst, the chocolate chips — all of this stuff, to the point where several years ago, I had an elementary to second grade age child with an autism spectrum disorder who was in a program where these reward systems were used and his parents came in after just six months of being in that program, he had become very, very, overweight, his behavior was off the charts, and when we looked at what was going on — because ever since this child entered this classroom, he has been fed these highly-processed, high refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup things all day long to manage his behavior. How could he not now be struggling also with issues of weight and the mental health concerns of that? And I just think that often, parents are not aware of how prevalent that practice is, particularly for kids with behavioral concerns, with developmental disabilities. 

Bettina Siegel:

You know, one thing I’m learning since writing the books and doing interviews like this is people will say things that I’m like, “Oh, I wish I included that in my book!” This is such an important topic because I remember that when we were trying in Houston to build into our wellness policy a ban on candy and other junk food rewards or indeed any food reward — one issue that kept coming up was special needs classrooms feel like they must use these kinds of reinforcements. And I think we even had a carve-out for it and I think that is so troubling because just as you said, these are children who in particular, might benefit from a diet that isn’t so heavy in the candy and all the other processed food, it’s really a very troubling issue. Even my own children, when they had speech therapy — they had a speech therapist who would constantly reward them with candy, or have them use unhealthy foods like manipulating their mouth like pudding and things like that. It was driving me crazy. So that is such an important topic. I’m glad you raised it. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, and you have a wonderful section in the book where you talk about this. I had read this previously on your blog but this ‘Food in the Classroom Manifesto’, this list of things that many of us as parents just really want people in the schools, teachers, and classrooms to be thinking about and not doing as it relates to feeding our kids. 

Bettina Siegel:

Yes, I’m not kidding when I say I pounded that thing out in about 15 minutes because I was so fed up at that point. As I make very clear in the book, I am not some kind of food cop, I love sharing sweets with my kids, I wouldn’t mind them having a dessert every day. But it was starting to become so oppressive, they were getting treated at school so often that I just couldn’t take it anymore. And I did pound out this manifesto, and it turned out to be very useful, I can tell — hundreds of parents have downloaded it, and they use it as a discussion point or a starting point for discussion in their dealings with their school. It’s just asking schools to think about these practices. Totally apart from the nutritional concerns, there is research that I’m sure you are familiar with that shows that you really change a child’s relationship to food when you start using it as a reward. So it’s just troubling for so many reasons, it really is.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely. We did a recent episode about just that, the emotional issues that we set up in kids around food and this idea of using food as a reward, using it in ways that are associated with aspects of performance and just how problematic that is, apart from the very real nutritional concerns. So yeah, just so many issues there, and again, just as we were talking about raising these issues with kids having conversations, we need to be having conversations in lots of places, right? We need to be having conversations with our kids’ teachers, with the school systems, we just need to be talking about this stuff more. 

Bettina Siegel:

Yes, so I had several different goals for Kid Food and the first is just to kind of validate parents, educate them, support them — I know parents are busy, I used to have little kids, you are pressed for time and you are just doing the best you can, so I add information in there that I hope just helps parents along, information about picky eating, information about decoding confusing health claims on products. But the second goal for the book, the loftier goal is I would want to have some of these conversations going in your soccer league, in your PTA meeting, with your local restaurateur, asking him or her why can’t the children’s menu be healthier? Parents have a huge amount of power. We are an untapped source of power on these issues if we band together and if we have those conversations. So I have a chapter that’s just 14 rules for good advocacy when you want to have those kinds of difficult conversations. So again, that’s my secondary and kind of higher goal for the book. Let’s be talking about these things, let’s try to shift the culture as much as we can. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think that’s one of the things I love most about the book is that you focus on two levels. One is you give parents some practical things that they can think about in their own life with their kids related with food, but you also on a more macro level provide tools and information for how to address this in a way that goes beyond just what we’re doing in our homes, which I think is wonderful. 

Bettina Siegel:

Exactly, and then I take it to even the highest level, which is totally apart from the individual activism we can all be engaging in if we wanted to. Then I offer four really big policy shifts, the kind that would take congress, but again, if we vote on these issues, if we ask our legislators about them, they become topics in town halls and debates, then they’re on the agenda and that’s another goal. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely. And I’d love to have a sort of finish on that topic. At the end of the book, you talk about these four wishes for improving how we feed kids in this country. What are those four wishes?

Bettina Siegel:

So I’ll keep them very top-line, I kind of go into a little detail on each one, but the big picture issues are: Improvements to the school meal program. I only had one chapter in the book on school food and my goal is that when you finish reading that chapter, you will understand why the food in your cafeteria may not look like you want it to, why it’s still so highly processed often, why you’re not seeing scratch cooking. So one big goal is all the ways we can support school food professionals better fund that program, all of that. A second goal relates to, as we talked about earlier, advertising. If I had my wish, we would just ban child-directed food and beverage advertising altogether, but I also offer other ways we could at least restrict it and limit it. Another goal relates to how products are marketed to parents. 

I think one driver of children’s unhealthy diet is the fact that parents may think they’re doing a great job when they pull off the shelf in the supermarket a highly-processed product that’s plastered with healthy and nutrition ingredients that mislead them. They think they’re doing a good thing for their kids and in fact, they’re not. So that main topic is all about how we can make that labeling more reliable and less confusing and less misleading for parents. Then the final goal is when we also — I already touch on it a little bit, which is how can we get kids themselves to own these issues, inoculating them against advertising, teaching them about cooking and nutrition, which we really don’t do a very good job of anymore in our schools, and just other ways we can get kids kind of onboard with their own healthy eating, because ultimately, we can shape the environment as much as we can, but they also have to understand essentially what’s at stake and how to navigate that environment. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely, couldn’t agree more. The book is called “Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children In a Highly-Processed World. Bettina, where can people find the book and where can they go to find more information about you and what you’re doing?

Bettina Siegel:

They can find the book on any online book-seller, Amazon, also the IndieBound and all of them and in many bookstores around the country. They can visit The Lunch Tray for my regular blog, then I have a website: bettinasiegel.com, which is specifically about the book, if they want more information. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Fantastic, we’ll make sure to include all those links in the show notes, highly, highly recommend this book, encourage you to pick up a copy and read more about all this for yourself. Really great work with the book, Bettina, and thank you so much for spending time with us today to talk about it. 

Bettina Siegel:

Oh, it was such a pleasure, thank you for having me!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And thanks to all of you for listening, we’ll catch on the next episode of The Better Behavior show.