In a video posted on Instagram, Dr Mehdi Terki, visceral and digestive surgeon, says he has relaxed the dietary rules at home. The right approach is neither a permanent ban nor letting things go: limiting certain products at home can help, but too rigid control can create tensions and concerns.
Limit without prohibiting: the framework that really helps
In his video, Dr. Terki describes a period when he was “very rigid”, particularly about snacks, the foods in the cupboards and what his children ate. His personal observation: when there are fewer industrial biscuits or sugary drinks at home, children can turn to something else more easily. Take it for what it is: a testimony, not a universal proof.
Basically, this idea is in line with French recommendations: limit certain fatty, sweet, salty or ultra-processed products without demonizing them. Among children, health authorities particularly target sugary drinks, fruit juices, pastries, biscuits and cakes as useful levers for reducing excess sugar. And in prevention benchmarks, water remains the reference drink.
But limiting does not mean banning. Saying that a soda, an ice cream or a birthday cake “calls everything into question” maintains an overly rigid vision of food. This is precisely one of the messages of the video: occasionally eating a less favorable food does not erase overall habits.
“What I am defending is not dietary perfection. It’s more about finding margin, enough points of reference to make choices, enough flexibility to live normally.“
Concretely, the good compromise looks more like this:
- Do not systematically fill cupboards with sugary drinks, biscuits and very sugary products;
- Provide simple and accessible options for meals and snacks;
- Keep a place for pleasure foods, without presenting them as forbidden;
- Avoid constantly commenting on what everyone is eating, especially in front of children.
Shaping the family food environment can therefore facilitate certain choices. But this does not make it possible to predict the behavior of each child: preferences, age, exposure outside the home, marketing, family habits and social context also count. When it comes to being overweight, your weight is not just about the contents of your cupboards. To go further, use our guidelines to support an overweight child without a restrictive diet.
When control becomes counterproductive
Perhaps the most interesting point of the video is this: we often talk about overeating, much less about control. Dr Mehdi Terki explains that this control, when it becomes permanent, can “occupy the head”, weigh on family meals, the couple or transform a birthday snack into a calculation.
The available data invites nuance. Scientific reviews find links between certain very restrictive parental practices and less favorable eating behaviors or weight in children. But association does not mean causation: we cannot simply state that restriction causes excess weight or eating disorders.
Relationships can also be two-way: parents may become more restrictive because a child is already very attracted to certain foods or because he or she is overweight.
The risk, on a daily basis, is less in “making a rule” than in transforming each meal into an ordeal. If a food becomes absolutely forbidden, it can also take up more space in thoughts or become a subject of conflict. Conversely, leaving everything available all the time doesn’t necessarily help either.
Finding the perfect balance
The happy medium therefore consists of setting a clear framework, while maintaining breathing space: flexibility is part of balance. We can limit very sugary products at home, without feeling guilty about a child who eats a cake at a party. We can monitor habits, without monitoring every bite. And we can talk about health, without reducing diet to weight.
However, one point deserves attention: if food rules take up too much space, if eating becomes a source of repeated anxiety, significant tension or overwhelming concerns, it is better to speak to a health professional.
This doesn’t mean that there is necessarily an eating disorder, but you don’t have to wait until the situation gets worse to seek help. The most important thing is to know what can help when food control becomes an obsession.