French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Billon (classic english novels txt) 📕

snack food, followed by salty snacks and sweetened beverages (like soft drinks and sports drinks). Our kids are drinking less milk and eating less fresh fruit than we did when we were their age. Basically, just like adults, they are filling up on “fake food” at snacktime and consuming more calories, but fewer nutrients, as a result. In one article I read, worried nutritionists characterized this as a dangerous trend toward “constant eating.” Thinking about all of this made me wonder about the rates of overweight kids in France. Few people in the village seemed overweight—and not a single one of Sophie’s classmates. The statistics I read confirmed what I was seeing: 20 percent of kids in the United States are obese, but only 3 percent in France.

Still, I worried that giving up snacking would be a bad thing. To counter my husband’s research, I found other studies, which showed that snacking could improve mood, memory, and blood sugar levels.

“Not snacking makes kids stressed,” I said, triumphantly, pointing to printouts of some of the studies I’d found.

“I think,” Philippe said mildly, “that not snacking makes you stressed.” It was true that my kids got upset, restless, whiny, and jittery when they didn’t snack. But it was also true that I got upset, restless, whiny, and jittery when they didn’t snack. I decided to try my next argument.

“Not snacking will mean that Sophie won’t do as well in school. Snacking stabilizes blood sugar levels. She needs to snack, or else she won’t be able to concentrate.” I finished, ominously, with “You know what I’m like when I get low blood sugar. Cutting out snacks will just mean more family fights and more bad behavior.”

“She’s doing fine so far this year,” Philippe retorted, “and she hasn’t been allowed to snack at school at all.” This was true. I was actually not so secretly proud of how well Sophie had learned French, adapted to the classroom, and risen to the challenge of an eight-hour school day at such a young age. But I had one more argument up my sleeve.

“Moving to France has been really stressful for the girls. Snacks are reassuring for them. The girls need their bedtime snacks—it’s a routine that has stayed the same while so much around them has changed. And they like their morning snacks on the weekends; it’s something they look forward to. Let’s just go easy on them,” I pleaded.

“I think,” Philippe replied firmly, “that we would fight less about snacks if we limited them to once a day, only at the goûter, just like all the other French kids. Right now, the kids know that snacks are open to negotiation. They have morning snacks, afternoon snacks, and bedtime snacks. And they want more. So they ask to snack all the time. And they persist even when we say no. That’s what is creating the stress around snacking.”

I wondered whether his mother had been coaching him, but I also had to admit that he might be right. Despite my commitment to French Food Rule #2, I was still using snack food as a substitute for discipline. This made things easier in the short term: I didn’t have to teach my daughters the patience they needed to wait in line at the bank or the grocery store because snacks would achieve the same result, without stress. But there was a drawback: once I’d set up the expectation that they’d get a snack at the checkout, the habit was hard to break. And my girls expected snacks in lots of places, at lots of different times. So they ended up snacking randomly, often impulsively, and sometimes pretty much continuously throughout the day. The kids’ demands for snacks tended to intensify in the late afternoon and peak right before dinnertime. If I gave in, they usually filled up on cookies, bread and butter, or baguette. I’d spend quality time with my B.B. Kook, only to have them pick at the tasty, healthy things I was serving at dinner. I could see the advantages of reducing or banning snacks. But I feared the whining, crying, and tantrums that would result.

True, the French kids around us weren’t throwing tantrums over missed snacks. In fact, they didn’t even seem to miss them. They loved their goûter, but since they’d never seen people around them eating in between meals, it basically didn’t occur to them to ask.

Still, I didn’t quite believe that our kids could behave like this. So my in-laws waged a quiet campaign. My mother-in-law casually brought up the subject of snacks. And so did Philippe’s cousins. And my sister-in-law. All of this made me defensive, even as I had to admit that what they were saying made a lot of sense. Looking back, I now realize that I was feeling homesick and defensive about being a foreigner. Snacking had become one of my primary sources of comfort. And, resentful of the villagers’ apparent lack of interest in befriending me, I wanted to hold on to snacking as a childish assertion of my identity.

The turning point happened the night before Easter. A friend of ours back home was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And one of Sophie’s best friends in Vancouver lost a molar to cavities; when her parents took her to the dentist, they discovered a mouth full of rotten teeth and a gum infection. She would have to have a major operation to remove her molars and install implants as placeholders until her adult teeth came in. When my husband read me the email about Sophie’s friend, I was up late at night, sorting bunnies, chicks, and eggs to be hidden in the garden, and writing clues for the elaborate treasure hunt I’d planned to go with them. After he’d finished, I took a long, hard look at the piles of candy and chocolate. Philippe sensed his advantage.

“What about that idea of doing a family food diary?” he asked. He’d been pestering me for days with the suggestion. “It