Diet and Health

Children's perceptions about diet are slowly moving towards an appreciation that some food is healthy and some isn't and this new nutrition book typifies the health-based approach to diet that starts off from such an understanding. So the introduction stresses that 'most of us' (us who read the book, presumably) eat far more than we really need, and fibre takes its place among the more predictable dietary ingredients - its benefits graphically described. Room is also made for statements which only a few years ago would have been regarded as heterodox or not regarded at all - 'Fish oils ... are particularly good for the heart' and 'a well-planned vegetarian diet can be a perfectly healthy one'. Particularly welcome is the way in which the book takes diet out of physiology and relocates it in everyday life, so that many of the observations offered are not just biological facts but life skills waiting to be adopted. Another significant break with convention is provided by the discussion of food hygiene, the ill-effects of its avoidance, stomach upsets and eating disorders, all of which help to show diet is an active pursuit and best done sensibly. The book's self-conscious design (by K and Co) incorporating many meaningless coloured rectangles on each spread, and oddly tilted photographs, does nothing to impede its straightforward message, nor anything to reinforce it.