Karen le Billon

“French parents are provided with very different information about food, and about children's eating habits, than American parents. This is because French doctors, teachers, nutritionists, and scientists, view the relationship between children, food and parenting very differently than do North Americans. They assume, for example, that all children will learn to like vegetables. And they have carefully studied strategies for getting them to do so. French psychologists and nutritionists have systematically assessed the average number of times children will have to taste new foods before they willingly agree to eat them: the average is seven, but most parenting books recommend between ten and fifteen.”