Sweets, chocolate and crisps are on the menu of a new French campaign against childhood obesity entitled Vive la Gourmandise, which loosely translates as “Long Live Gluttony”.

The campaign, launched last month, represents a return to traditional Gallic gastronomic values and an attempt to restore the pleasure of eating.

Nutritionists say that conventional anti-obesity programmes have left the French bewildered and guilty about their food, and have often proved counter-productive.

“People are lost because the notion of happiness is not seen as correct,” says Jean-Michel Borys, the director of the government body, Together Let’s Prevent Childhood Obesity (Epode). “Today, advice about food is strict, but rarely takes account of la gourmandise even though this is part of life.”

Borys is now telling French children to eat sweets, chocolate, biscuits and cakes every day, although not to excess. He says that they can have crisps before their meals, but not so that they are full-up. And he advises them to enjoy a big breakfast and a pain au chocolat for tea.

“When you limit yourself too much, that brings on compulsive eating behaviour,” says Borys. “Overweight children often have parents who diet obsessively.”

His recommendations come amid a sharp rise in obesity in France, accompanied by the arrival of fast-food culture and the decline of the traditional French four-course meal.

In 1980, for instance, obesity affected 5 per cent of children, compared with 15 per cent 20 years later. If present trends continue, the French will be as fat as the Americans by 2020, according to recent studies.

At first, French authorities responded by running the sort of campaigns developed in Britain and the US, with the emphasis on “healthy” eating. But this is seen to have been a mistake which helped to undermine Gallic cuisine and replace it with a culture of sandwiches and nibbles.

The danger is an end to the so-called French paradox — a comparatively low rate of heart disease despite (or perhaps because of) a diet consisting of cheese, fatty meat and sauces.

“We’re seeing a new type of patient suffering from a veritable alimentary neurosis,” says Dr Jean-Philippe Zermati, author of a new book, The Diet Dictatorship. “Eating has become a source of worry and guilt for them.” His advice is to “eat whatever tempts you and to stop when you’re full-up. Trust your feelings not your head”.

He adds: “In the US they adopted an analytical approach to food as long ago as 1850, with vast nutrition programmes. It was the mind which should control the body, and today the damage that caused is obvious for all to see.”

The officials in charge of France’s campaign against childhood obesity have come to a similar conclusion. “Sweets are part of childhood, which is when you must discover all sorts of different tastes,” says the official brochure for Vive la Gourmandise. “They contribute to a sense of well-being because they help you to feel good: the important thing is to consume these products with moderation.”

This brochure, along with a poster saying La Gourmandise, ça s’apprend aussi (“Loving food is something to learn about, as well”), is being distributed in towns known to have a high rate of childhood obesity. So, too, is a leaflet that explains why sweets and crisps are acceptable, if eaten in moderate quantities.

A guide on la gourmandise has also been delivered to primary school teachers, who have been invited to organise “food workshops” for their pupils. And an explanatory note has been sent to health professionals advising that restrictive, negative talk about the foods children enjoy could do more damage than good.

The campaign is also a reminder of a long-standing French dispute with the Catholic Church, which included la gourmandise in the French language version of the Seven Deadly Sins, listed by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th century.

Although gourmandise is translated in most dictionaries as “gluttony” (or gula in Latin), French gastronomes argue that it is altogether different, an ability to enjoy food and, therefore, a quality rather than a sin. In a petition to the Vatican in 2003 they said that it should be replaced by gloutonnerie, which implies excessive over-eating and is closer to the act that Pope Gregory intended to forbid . . . the Vatican never replied.

Adam Sage is a Times correspondent in Paris

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