Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Grosse negligence

Forget the Mediterranean diet: it’s about good parenting

A decade ago a book called French Women Don’t Get Fat took the Anglophone world by storm. It was a bestseller in Britain and America because, as the blurb explained, the French author ‘unlocks the simple secrets’ of why her people aren’t fat. So here is my sequel: Why French Kids Don’t Get Fat.

Admittedly, there are a few who look like they know their way to the boulangerie, but in general most are slim, healthy and fit. The stats back me up. Last year, the French ministry of health reported that obesity levels among nine- and ten-year-olds had fallen to just 3.6 per cent. In Britain, an official report last year said ‘nearly a third of children aged two to 15 are overweight or obese’. This summer, Public Health England said obesity levels at age 10 and 11 were at a record high. The British Journal of Family Medicine warned that if these children don’t slim down, their adult years will be blighted by diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.

How can there be such a contrast between two countries separated by 20 miles of water? Please, not the old nonsense about the ‘Mediterranean diet’. There’s nothing Mediterranean about Paris in winter. It’s just like Britain: cold, grey and miserable.

My 13-year-old daughter goes to school in Paris and after all the years I’ve spent waiting for her at the gates I can count on one hand the number of obese kids I’ve seen waddle out. And it’s not just the middle classes. Her mother teaches in a state school in Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the most deprived regions in France. Her pupils are diverse in colour and creed, but none is obese. Their parents take pride in their appearance because they see it as an extension of their education.

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