Childhood obesity is on the rise in the UK, with a recent study by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) predicting that the number of children with obesity is set to worsen across 90 per cent of the country, with the majority of children in England either overweight or obese by 2035.
The marketing of cheap ultra-processed food (UPFs) and high levels of poverty are driving the significant decline in British children’s health, finds research. But why is the problem worse in the UK, while countries such as France, Denmark and Norway often have the lowest rates?
In an attempt to tackle this, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) enforced a ban on junk food advertising before 9pm. But are ads having that much of an effect? Expat parent Lucy Werner isn’t so sure. Werner, a writer, PR expert and founder of online community Hype Yourself, left London for Provence in 2021, with her husband and children. Four years later, she tells Maybelle Morgan how she has seen her kids completely change their diets.
When people think of French food they might think of buttery brioche, duck confit, camembert and red wine. I know it baffles people that such a rich diet could produce a population that generally stays so healthy and slim. But after living in France for three and a half years, I think I know why.
Back in 2021, after raising our two sons, now eight and six, in Hackney, London, for several years, my French husband Hadrien and I decided to take the leap and move to Pays de Fayence, a string of hilltop villages in the South of France. The day we had the offer on our house accepted, I also discovered I was pregnant with my daughter, now two.
Since being here I do think that my three children have 100 per cent changed how they eat, and for the better.
Structured, mindful eating ‘little and often’ is encouraged
For all ages, French eating isn’t about restriction, but quality over quantity – so a “little and often” type of eating is really encouraged. For children, this starts in school.
In the UK, you would start primary school at four or five (plus the option of nursery before then), whereas here everyone starts école maternelle, which is a state nursery school from the ages of three until six.
Schools have a fortnightly menu that parents can see pinned to the school gate, which is always a three-course meal of “bio food”, organic fruit, vegetables and meat marked with the EU green leaf to certify that they are organic. Each parent in the school is on a rota to bring in fruit for the fruit snack the kids get every day.
In the summer, the starter will be a salad of grated carrot, olive oil and a dressing. In the winter it might be soup. The second course is often meat-based, so chicken in a sauce, beef stew, or a pork chop. The lunch is always three courses made up of greens, proteins and a small sweet treat (the portion is set by school education, they are more aware they shouldn’t have too much sugar – but they can have a little).
After lunch they are put down for a nap – in total, they will have a two-hour break. Even if they are not sleeping, they still have to lie down and rest. From a young age they are encouraged to eat mindfully, slow down and rest – not to rush eating so they can go and play.
My children learn at school what is healthy, what is not, and what should be on a balanced plate. The government writes letters to the school. We have a school app where we see notes about eating awareness and healthy eating programmes. They are taught the importance of having a structured and balanced meal so there is less random snacking from a young age.
‘My children learn at school what is healthy and what is not’My middle child is six so he is in CP (Cours préparatoire), the equivalent of Year 2, and because he is copying what teachers tell them at school or what he observes on the menu, he will directly tell me at home: “I want to eat something healthy today.”
Eating is a social occasion to be cherished – and shared
If my children stay at school for wrap-around care, they have a Goûter, which literally means “to taste”, a French tradition of an afternoon snack of a small sweet treat. It could be a bit of brioche, or a small bit of cake, or a yoghurt with a sachet of compote. But the focus isn’t on the sugary treat but who you share it with.
This eating as a social occasion expands to the home too: you don’t sit with food on your lap and watch TV, you set the table and you eat mindfully and have conversations – which probably means you don’t unintentionally overeat.
Eating is a social event. We might end up having people over and getting extra food in, or we might go to someone’s house. Culturally, even with the two-hour lunch break at work or school, eating is something to be celebrated, enjoyed and shared. There’s this collective joy in eating – it’s not just a means to an end where you rush to refuel or squeeze a bite in.
Convenience is done differently
Living in London, everything was on my door. I do miss Uber Eats – there is none of that here. In supermarkets you don’t have the same access to ready meals as you do in the UK – the meal deal or pre-packaged sandwich doesn’t really exist here. People here will buy freshly made baguette sandwiches or make their own.
In France, pizza will be a square of homemade bread with tomato and meats, rather than a frozen artificial pizza that looks like it has a shelf life of a thousand years. Even the “beige” food – like chicken nuggets or chicken cordon bleu, chicken breast stuffed with ham and cheese – feels better quality and doesn’t feel as processed. I’m definitely more mindful of the ingredients going into their bodies and food quality is really important.
Don’t get me wrong, there is pre-prepared food, but it looks completely different in France. A common dinner I cook is tomates farcies, a French dish of baked tomatoes stuffed with a mixture of sausage, ground beef and herbs. Here, you can buy the meat that has already been pre-minced and seasoned ready to stuff your tomatoes. It’s not like frozen food that you would get in the UK, it’s more conveniently prepared ingredients that make life a little easier.
We do have a McDonald’s in the village, and sometimes I’ll take them – and there’s other French people there with their children – but it’s very much a treat rather than a given.
Food is fresher – and eaten seasonally
Our family’s food shopping habits have massively changed. In London, if we were going to Aldi, we could probably do a weekly shop for £120. Here it is probably around €200 (£170) but we’re not in the habit of doing a weekly shop. It tends to be more of a drop-in every few days – as food is fresher we get it a bit closer to the time.
I never thought I’d be the kind of person going to the boulangerie, but now we have different bakeries for our baguettes or croissants. In the summer, on a Sunday we’ll phone ahead in advance to book our chicken from the rotisserie chicken stand. Sometimes we can pick up an organic vegetable box in our village for €10.
We live in the south, so we have very long summers. There will be different meats on the BBQ and different salads according to what is available. The kids are more in tune with whatever foods are in season at that time. In the winter we’ll have soups of vegetables in season.
The food quality is different here. Tomatoes out here taste full of different flavours. In the UK, tomatoes might be a side. Here, it’s quite normal for the kids to have a tomato salad with olive oil drizzled on them as a main summer lunch.
We will also have the first raclette of the season and we’ll melt our raclette cheese together on a little toaster that sits on the table served with ham and potatoes. Or we often buy a pre-packaged choucroute of ham, sausages and grated cabbage all as a pre-prepared package.
Their tastes have expanded
I also don’t take my children with me to the supermarket, which I feel is the case with many parents. They’ll tell me what they like throughout the week and it’s not a problem – doing a supermarket shop with three kids under the age of eight in another language is not my idea of fun.
The kids constantly surprise me with what they choose for themselves – things I would assume that they don’t like. My six-year-old middle child’s favourite thing to comfort eat at the moment, is a French baguette, saucisson (French salami), and cornichons, the small pickled gherkin.
At first I laughed, thinking it was the most middle class thing, almost like the French equivalent of loving avocados. Honestly, I don’t think that it would have ever crossed his lips if he had stayed in the UK, and this purely comes down to the fact they are something that are regularly served in school so they have exposure to them.
Where we are in Provence there are so many cultural influences and they’re exposed to lots of different types of food: Spanish, Italian, Mediterranean, African. The kids will eat seafood and prawns. It’s not snobbery or fussiness, it’s that they’re exposed to more complicated tastes and are also more intentional about knowing and picking the ingredients that make up their food.
Children are encouraged to eat adult food – and are less fussy
When we first moved and would go to family picnics, we’d pack individual sandwiches for each of the kids as each had preferences. Everybody else would bring picnic paper plates and share things like big bowls of pasta salad and a big bowl of tabbouleh – for kids and adults.
Over time, the kids have become less fussy, because everyone else here is less fussy. I made lentil soup the other day and the kids told me it was delicious. I would have bet money that if we stayed in the UK, that would never have passed their lips. But they eat lentils a lot at school, so they’re used to it and have developed a taste for it.
Even if you go to a restaurant, it’s quite rare that they will have a kids menu. If they do, it’s usually Steak Haché, a French dish of minced beef formed into a patty – so they’re having rare steak from a very young age and it’s not seen as an extravagance or ‘adult food’. Whereas in England, I don’t think I would have given my kids steak until they were in their late teens.
I really noticed their eating habits when we were at the airport cafe in Nice and I told them they could get whatever they wanted. I thought maybe they would get a pain au chocolate or a sugary yoghurt, and my eldest went for a chicken salad and my middle child wanted a ham sandwich with salad in it. I think this is behaviour ingrained from school and school lunches, that you always need to have veg with a meal for it to be balanced.
I do fear for anyone who is gluten-free or a vegan – it’s not really as much of a thing here. In Hackney, the boys went to a private crèche, and they had things like vegan Mondays. Here, you’re encouraged to eat what you’re given.
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It’s not down to advertising
On the advertising side of things, it’s great that the UK has decided to ban junk food ads but I personally don’t think ads have that much of an influence on my children.
In France, kids do end up seeing adverts on YouTube or TV, or posters at the cinema, but I don’t feel like the advert makes them want to have that food. Their healthy eating is down to other, more ingrained things – like following their peers, who are influenced by school and cultural norms.
Also when I do see adverts for things like chocolate, say Kinder Bueno, I notice it is always the smaller bite-sized pack – this helps kids learn how to practice portion control from a young age.
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