The book, ‘An Open letter to the Future President’, urges the French government to award school children extra marks for having an acceptable BMI.
Mr Dukan has assured critics that his idea isn’t designed to punish children for being overweight, it is simply designed to motivate them to lose weight by reinforcing positive associations.
According to the European Union’s statistics agency, 12.7% of French women and 11.7% of French men are obese. That’s around half of the percentage of obese people in Britain.
In spite of having one of the lowest rates of obesity in Europe, experts still believe obesity is a growing problem in France. In a bid to prevent the rise of obesity, the French government has introduced a series of obesity-fighting measures, including increasing the tax on fizzy pop.
Mr Dukan said: “There is nothing wrong with educating children about nutrition. This will not change anything for those who do not need to lose weight. For the others, it will motivate them.”
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