Annabel Karmel Q&A

A friend's daughter is 8 and she refuses to eat almost everything. She only like bland foods - plain rice, pasta with no sauce, dry toast. The only veg she eats are broccoli and spinach, and not regularly. She goes crazy for junk food.

How can you change a child's perspective on food? What's the best approach without making her push away even further?

She sounds like the perfect match for my grandson, ticktock!

Hi Annabel! There's much debate between brestfeeding/bottle feeding - does it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Where do you stand?

What do you think about the meals provided at schools and nurseries? Could more be done to encourage healthy eating - or is that the parents job?

DGS's nursery give him breakfast (choice of cereal) and a slice of toast, fruit snack, lunch, snack and tea at 4pm. What is 'tea'? Sometimes it's couscous, sometimes it's spaghetti hoops on toast. Is 'tea' meant to be dinner? If so, the latter isn't enough.

Good questions on here! I have a few one.. What's the best way to shield children from this junk food culture we have in the UK? Is encouraging healthy eating and diverse meals at home enough?

How do you explain to young children that eating too much of the wrong foods (or even too much of good stuff) is not a good thing to do. It's all very well saying that foods are healthy and unhealthy (which they have grasped admirably) but how to put across the message that if you eat more than you need you will put on weight when you don't want to use the F word (fat) or trigger issues over body image? There are major (over)weight issues in the wider family

Hello Annabel, I grew up in the era where every meal was followed by a "proper" pudding - which has done nothing for my waistline or my sweet tooth alas. My grandchildren always have fruit for dessert which is great - but I would love some ideas for alternatives that are easy to make and still pretty healthy.

I saw you somewhere (can't remember if it was on television or in a book or magazine) decorating fairy cakes like fish using white chocolate buttons. I haven't been able to find a picture so I can try this out - can you help?

Thankyou, GNHQ. My Toddler Recipes book has just arrived. It's got some great ideas in it, all of which adults would enjoy, too. I'm giving it to my daughter, who has 20 month old twins

Thank you for the book. It's been packed to take with us tomorrow as it has some very nice recipes just flicking through it.