This deep dive covers L'alimentation — Food and diet within Healthy living and lifestyle for GCSE French. Revise Healthy living and lifestyle in Theme 1: People and Lifestyle for GCSE French with 15 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This is a high-frequency topic, so it is worth revising until the explanation feels precise and repeatable. It is section 2 of 4 in this topic. Use this deep dive to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.

📋 L'alimentation — Food and diet

Know these food groups and describe what you eat using opinion and frequency language.

French	English
les fruits et légumes	fruit and vegetables
la viande	meat
le poisson	fish
les produits laitiers	dairy products
les céréales / le pain	cereals / bread
les matières grasses	fats
les protéines	proteins
les glucides	carbohydrates
manger équilibré / sainement	to eat a balanced / healthy diet
gras / grasse	fatty
sucré(e)	sweet / sugary
salé(e)	salty / savoury
boire de l'eau	to drink water
éviter les sucreries	to avoid sweets / sugary food

Je mange des fruits et légumes tous les jours et j'essaie de manger équilibré pour rester en bonne santé.

I eat fruit and vegetables every day and I try to eat a balanced diet to stay healthy.

tous les jours — frequency adverb: places this habit firmly in the present tense context
j'essaie de + infinitif — shows effort/attempt: good variety beyond simple present
pour rester en bonne santé — purpose phrase: gives AO2 communicative content beyond the minimum

Le mode de vie — Lifestyle habits

French	English
faire du sport / faire de l'exercice	to do sport / to exercise
se coucher tôt / tard	to go to bed early / late
se reposer suffisamment	to rest enough
boire de l'eau	to drink water
ne pas fumer	not to smoke
éviter l'alcool	to avoid alcohol
les drogues	drugs
le stress / l'anxiété (f)	stress / anxiety
gérer le stress	to manage stress
la santé mentale	mental health

Giving health opinions — High-value phrases

French	English
Pour rester en bonne santé, il faut...	To stay healthy, you have to...
Il est important de...	It is important to...
Ça fait du bien	It does you good
C'est bon / mauvais pour la santé	It is good / bad for your health
Ça donne de l'énergie	It gives you energy
Ça aide à se détendre	It helps you to relax
Je ne bois jamais de...	I never drink...
Je fais du sport... fois par semaine	I do sport... times a week

Je fais du sport trois fois par semaine parce que ça fait du bien et ça donne de l'énergie.

I do sport three times a week because it does you good and gives you energy.

Frequency phrase + two reason phrases joined by et — efficient and natural
ça = informal but entirely appropriate in AQA speaking and writing tasks

Higher

Bien que je fasse de mon mieux pour manger sainement, il m'est parfois difficile d'éviter les aliments trop sucrés, surtout pendant les périodes de stress scolaire.

Although I do my best to eat healthily, it is sometimes difficult for me to avoid very sugary foods, especially during stressful school periods.

Bien que je fasse — subjunctive triggered by bien que: top-band grammatical structure
il m'est difficile de — impersonal construction with indirect object pronoun: high-band complexity
surtout pendant les périodes de — extended context clause showing sophisticated use of vocabulary

⭐ The Two-Part Health Opinion

Always pair a habit with an opinion: [I do X] + [because it is good/bad for health / it does you good / it gives energy]. This structure alone earns consistent AO2 marks for developed communication. Add a frequency phrase and you have a full, mark-worthy sentence.

L'alimentation — Food and diet