'It's frankly idiotic' Kirstie Allsopp calls British approach to children's food a 'fatal' problem

Kirstie Allsopp has called the British approach to children's food 'idiotic', labelling the fact that children are fed different meals to their parents a 'fatal' problem.

The Location, Location, Location presenter, who's launching her first cookbook - Kirstie's Real Kitchen - opened up about her views on parents giving children different meals to their own and encouraged parents to get kids involved in cooking.

Speaking at Cheltenham Literature Festival, she said: 'The fatal problem we have in this country is that we make food for children. It's frankly idiotic.'

The mum-of-two compared the British approach to other countries where children eat the same meals as the adults.

'In countries all over the world, children eat what the adults eat. They eat spicy food, salted food, rich food.

'Somewhere at some point in this country we decided that children's food should be mush, and then we're surprised they don't want to eat,' she said.

When asked about the trend that's seeing dining tables going out of fashion, the TV star warned parents against not having meals as a family, saying that it could be 'dangerous'.

Kirstie Allsopp has launched her first cookbook, Kirstie's Real Kitchen

'I think it's dangerous. Genuinely, I can't overstress that. We know that mental health issues among teens are on the rise.

'There's a lot of research showing sitting down as a family talking about things, and taking the time to do that together, is incredibly important.'

'Totally aside from the fact that unless we learn to cook our own food, we will never learn what goes into food and we will never really learn to control our intake of calories,' she said.

Relying on her experience in property television shows, the 46-year-old said one of the reasons behind the trend to not having a dining room or even a dining table is because British houses are getting smaller.

'One of the reasons it's happening is that modern homes are smaller. They get smaller and smaller and smaller and it's awful.

'You have a situation where you have all these homes with bedrooms with en suite bathrooms but no tables. You don't learn to share anything, you don't learn to have a communal space, you never sit around the table together.'