Healthy Food Habits For Kids

It has always been an indian custom to obsess over how much our children eat. But this act of nurturing may end up setting up the child for a lifetime of bad food habits. What can we learn from the french about how to approach this daunting topic? Read on for the best lessons from the book "French kids eat everything" by karen le billon

- PRIYANKA ACHARYA

When my children were younger, I posted on social media that I was reading "French Kids Eat Everything" by Karen Le Billon. I immediately received desperate messages from moms begging to share any tips I learned from it. My kids were actually pretty good eaters, but I had let us settle into some naughty habits and thought this book would inspire me to do better. Plus, I am always eager to learn new perspectives that can totally shift our thinking when it comes to parenting. My particular parenting cross to bear was having bad sleepers, but I feel for parents of bad eaters, because it's something you have to confront 3 times a day, and does not necessarily get better with age.

Karen Le Billon was raised in an American farming family that treated food in a vastly different way from her French husband's family. The couple were living in Canada with their 2 young daughters when Karen, captivated by the idea of simple European country life, convinced her husband to move back to his hometown of Pleneuf Val Andre, a small village on the northwest coast of Brittany. While Karen had thought it was normal for children to be picky eaters, her year in France forced her to rethink this, and she embarked on the journey of turning her fusspots into French kids who eat everything.

Allow me to give you my editorialized explanation of French parenting, based not only on this book but also "Bringing up Bebe", which I found to be a more entertaining read than FKEE, probably because it dealt with parenting as a whole rather than one facet (though food habits are a major discussion in the book as well):