Q Very soon your little darlings will be heading off to school, some of them for the first time, some of them to a new and bigger school. There they will be exposed to a variety of bugs and diseases, and for some children this can be a time of repeated infections and illnesses, as well as of some stress and hard work. What can you do to help them?

A First and foremost, make sure they have a good diet. The World Health Organisation has recommended that we should all eat four-five portions of green and yellow fruit and veg every day, and although the portions will be smaller, kids are no exception to this.

Make sure that they eat some greens, and some fruit and fruit juice every day. If they resist this, as many do, there is a trick. Researchers in the USA found that the way to replace poor food with good food is to offer a choice - don't say "Eat your greens or else", say "Would you like green beans or broccoli?".

My son would only ever eat raw veg ("trees", he called them), so that is what he got. And get them gradually used to having less of the sugary stuff, with all the added E numbers that can get some kids so high they are bouncing off the walls.

Come Christmas especially, when it's dark and gloomy, and we all console ourselves with large amounts of sugar-foods, you will be grateful that yours do keep on eating their fruit and veg, and get less flu and colds as a result.

While you are doing this, check their protein intake as well. It has been shown that schoolkids who eat protein at breakfast concentrate better at school, and so learn better.

It hardly matters what protein - bacon, egg, meat such as ham, fish, cheese, even good vegetable protein will do. In fact beans on toast or (proper) muesli with milk are reasonable protein sources, certainly a lot better than SugarFrostyChoccyPuffs anyway, and if you are true vegetarians, soya is as good an amino acid source as meat.

I know it's not politically correct to say this in a town built on chocolate, but kids raised on a diet of "mis-shapes" are liable to rot their brains and their immune systems as well as their teeth. The tricky bit, of course, is that they learn by example, so what you eat, and how you approach it, influences them whether you like it or not.

So if you regard chocolate as a prize and vegetables as a punishment, then a) you can probably blame your parents, and b) your kids will eventually blame you, for their poor diet and poor health.

Hey, it's tough love.