The public health agency Santé Publique France has issued a range of healthy eating recommendations for parents of children aged between four and 11.

“Dietary recommendations for children aged 4 to 11 may be subject to a certain lack of awareness or preconceived ideas,” Anne-Juliette Serry, head of the nutrition and physical activity unit at SPF said.

“While parents tend to raise the subject naturally with health professionals in the case of toddlers, this is less the case when children start to grow up.”

Overall, the guidelines are similar to those in place for school lunches. Schools provide a hot three-course meal for all pupils at lunchtime, with government guidelines in place to cover the nutritional content.

But SPF is also concerned about what children eat – and how they eat – at home. So here’s what French authorities say children should be eating;

Five-a-day – but don’t count fruit juice

Children need to get used to eating “fruit and vegetables at meals every day”, SPF said – regardless of whether they are, “fresh, frozen or canned, raw or cooked, plain or prepared”.

But it said that fruit juices, which contain sugars and are low in fibre, “do not count as a daily portion of fruit and vegetables”.

Fruit juice consumption should be limited to half a glass a day for children up to the age of 11, with a maximum of one glass for older children. Squeezed fruit is preferable in all cases.

Snacks

The goûter – the afternoon snack, typically eaten after school – is an institution for French kids (and plenty of adults) and SPF wisely does not try to suggest ditching it.

But SPF – citing the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire, de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (Anses) and the Haut Conseil de la santé publique – recommends limiting the daily intake of viennoiseries such as croissants and pains au chocolat (or chocolatines, per right-thinking people in southwest France).

Instead, it suggests giving children, “bread with a few squares of chocolate or a little butter or jam, fresh fruit or compote or a dairy product”.

READ ALSO Le goûter: The importance of the afternoon snack in France

If you buy in pre-packaged cookies or snacks, avoid ones with a Nutri-Score E.

Three dairy products a day

Children and adolescents should consume up to three dairy products a day, SPF said, for their calcium intake, compared with two for adults. Milk, yoghurt and cheese are all recommended.

READ ALSO Cheese in numbers: France’s obsession with fromage

But children under five years of age should not consume raw milk, or cheeses made from raw milk (except Emmental or Comté), due to the risk of infection, the agency warned.

Watch your portion sizes

Portion sizes should be adapted to those of adults. It’s recommended that children between the ages of four and six have portions that are half that of an adult, with quantities increasing progressively until children are eating adult portions from the age of 11.

READ ALSO Are packed lunches really banned in French schools?

Table manners

The agency doesn’t just concern itself with what children eat, but how they eat, saying that childhood is “the time when benchmarks and habits are set that will stay with us into adulthood”. 

It “encourages parent/child interaction as much as possible, by eating together at the table and avoiding screens at mealtimes.” 

Where possible, it recommends cooking together.

The aim of the campaign is to “facilitate the adoption of good practices in everyday household life, and ultimately reduce the incidence of illnesses and medical conditions that can be induced by inappropriate eating habits”.