Eating habits develop in our youth and our parents' relationship with food influences us more than what they preach.
When I was a kid I did not like fish and vegetables. I went to a Catholic school run by nuns where discipline was strict. Some evenings, at home, my mother would find in the pocket of my uniform the classic Italian panino, with a hole in the top, filled with a mixture of what I did not want to eat but was forced to.
"I never pushed you to eat fish nor vegetables," says my mum, Liliana - although she hid vegetables in the dishes I liked.
Restrictions and pressure on children do not work and generate an exaggerated focus on food, making it a means to assert independence, preclude self-regulation, and - when the parents aren't around - encourage the child to eat what is forbidden.
My eating habits have not been admirable for my entire life and during my years as a management consultant, I stopped exercising and enjoyed way too many client dinners and business class meals. I became overweight. But I always had in mind my mother's attitude towards well-being, and eventually I took action to regain my health.
My mother's focus has always been to use food, not necessarily to lose weight, but to improve health. She was into organic and wholegrain before they were trendy. Food was the medicine she used to delay the kidney failure that is hereditary in my family. Despite years of dialysis and a kidney transplant, today she looks young and full of energy - because of the way she eats.