The father, aged 53, was on Tuesday found guilty of mistreating his daughters between 2008 and 2011.

The girls, who are now aged 17 and 20, had been living with their mother at the time after she separated from their father. They would then spend weekends with their father, La Repubblica reported.

But in 2011 they complained to their mother that their father had been mistreating them, forcing them to do intensive skiing.

The father also forced them to follow a macrobiotic diet, which is typically a vegetarian diet consisting of whole grains, cereals and vegetables, saying they were too fat.

“You’re fat, you have to do more sport: you will never achieve anything in life,” the father, who has no previous criminal convictions, allegedly told them.

He was reported to police by the girls’ mother.

According to the prosecution the father’s words had had a damaging psychological impact on the girls.

This was backed up by witnesses from the skiing school.

But the father claimed that he was just a concerned father worried about the health of his daughters.

He will now be imprisoned for nine months. The prosecution had requested ten months.