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Fitness and wellbeing advocate Caroline Oversier is spreading the message of healthy eating and encouraging youngsters to pursue a more balanced diet with the release of her first book.
The 41-year-old mum-of-five wrote and released Eat the Rainbow this year, and it has already proved a smash hit having sold almost 100 copies alone at the St Christopher’s School Festive Fayre earlier this month.
Caroline, who is married to compound manager Rolf, developed an interest in healthy foods a number of years ago, but it was a while until she developed the confidence to bring her interest to a wider audience.
She said: “I decided to pursue a writing course during the summer of this year. I was dallying over it for a while, but eventually Rolf encouraged me to follow my dreams and to go ahead and just start doing it right away.
“The course is still ongoing and I have realised my dream much quicker than I had ever thought. I originally planned to write a cook book, but I could never quite get the focus involved and cataloguing all my recipes felt too much like work and not so much fun.
“So I changed tack and decided to make it focussed on pre-school children, with lots of cute rhymes and illustrations that would keep them invested in the message I was trying to get across.
“I realised that if this is done in a fun and dynamic way, it was much easier to convince children themselves as to how eating the different colours directly impacts their bodies. The book is written in a very simple way with a few rhymes about each colour and why they are important to our body.”
Caroline wrote the book within a day and asked her friend, Julia Oakley, to provide the illustrations to bring the words to life, a feat which took a couple of weeks. There was then the arduous task of editing and publishing, which took the longest time.
The effort was worth the investment, though, as the book is currently being enjoyed by kids and parents alike across the kingdom.
Caroline grew up as an expat child in various countries, including Saudi Arabia, and moved back to the Middle East after having her first set of identical twins, Justin and Jamie, who were born in Venezuela and are now 12.
The family lived in Jubail until 2010, during which Lily, now 10, was born. They moved to Bahrain for schooling, and in 2016, Caroline and Rolf had their second set of twins, Jake and Violet.
Her parents, Margaret and Peter, are a big influence and are quick to lend a helping hand with the tribe of children, whilst her brother Chris and his wife, Jenny, also live in Bahrain. Caroline’s other two brothers and their respective families live in neighbouring Dubai and they remain, in her words, ‘a very close-knit family.’
Caroline’s passion for healthy eating developed during a difficult period in her life, but is thankful she went through the experience because it allowed her to focus on her interests.
She explained: “I was, quite frankly, stuck in a rut. I was feeding my oldest boys the same food every day as I knew they would eat the smiley faces, fish fingers or nuggets and, if I was lucky, I would get peas or corn into them.
“It hit me hard when I realised I wasn’t doing them any good, even though meal times were peaceful. Whenever they got sick, they asked me to make ‘sick soup’, which I have now renamed to ‘rainbow soup.’ I made this with whatever vegetables I had in my fridge and after cooking them with stock, I blended it together and the boys would devour it.
“I slowly started to introduce more and more healthy foods to them knowing it would take at least ten tastes before they would accept it as a new flavour. We gradually as parents started to let them say no to certain new flavours as long as they gave them a fair try. We now have children that will eat anything and are a lot more adventurous!
“Eat the Rainbow is written for pre-schoolers and for their parents. Having said that, so far, every age has seemed to find something they like in the book. I am a huge fan of rhyming and I think it introduces a fun and easy way for children to learn and remember what the different coloured fruits and vegetables stand for.
“I’m so grateful to Julia, who is an extremely talented artist, for managing to capture my words and turn them into a reality with fun characters. The book starts with a little boy feeling down and blue, and ends up with him feeling happy and healthy from head to toe.
“I truly believe it has something for everyone. My older boys love the illustrations, my middle child loves reading the rhymes, and my two small ones love the book being read to them. It’s a handy book to use to check which colour might be beneficial for some health issue you might be experiencing.”
As for the future, Caroline hopes that Eat the Rainbow is just the tip of the iceberg. She is planning to set up her own health coaching and consultancy business in Bahrain in the next few years, and in the meantime she will be working with Julia on a whole series of books promoting healthy eating and explaining things in a simple way to both children and adults, covering various topics from allergies to becoming a mum and the honest truth about what that entails.
She is also looking forward to interacting with the health community in Bahrain, such as doing talks and presentations at places like the Farmers Market.
Eat the Rainbow is available now for BD3.5, and can be bought at Baby Essentials Bahrain in Seef Mall, My Gym in Seef, Words Bookstore Café in Buidaya, or from Caroline directly by calling 39327046 or emailing coversier@gmail.com
