The French Secret

Here’s a long article from the International Herald Tribune that reports that the French, like the rest of the world, are finally getting fat.

Doctors here are perplexed by the runaway success in the United States of the best-selling advice book “French Women Don’t Get Fat.”

“Oh, but they do!” said Dr. France Bellisle, a prominent obesity researcher here. “I work in a nutrition department where we see lots of people who are overweight. And I can tell you that French women are getting obese - and some massively obese - these days.”

In fact, France is suffering something of an obesity crisis, with rates here rising “at an alarming rate,” particularly among young people, Bellisle said. True, absolute rates are still lower here than in the United States and most other European countries: 11.3 percent of the French are obese and nearly 40 percent overweight, compared with more than 50 percent overweight in Britain and the United States.

But the sudden sharp rise - 5 percent annually since 1997 - is causing great alarm in a society renowned for thinness, a country that long seemed exempt from a worldwide epidemic of obesity.

Yes, the French are getting fat. Most of us never thought they were genetically exempt from obesity, only that the traditional French diet and way of eating, combined with their habit of walking everywhere, kept them from the acheiving the levels of obesity we’ve seen elsewhere in the developing world.

Here’s our good friend Mireille Guiliano to remind us of that.

In her book “French Women Don’t Get Fat,” Mireille Guiliano, a French-born executive who now lives in New York, attributes her own slimness to traditional French meal culture, which she suggests infuses in women an appreciation of healthy diet, exercise and the discipline to consume smaller portions.

In theory, researchers heartily agree. But, they say, that way of eating is no longer the French norm, and no longer practical, either.

As for Guiliano, still svelte at nearly 60, they suggest there may be more going on.

“Educated women have less of a tendency to get fat in any culture,” Dr. Bellisle said. “They have the financial means to buy the right food and the right clothes, which is a big incentive to stay thin.”

Whatever works, is what I say.

Here’s a picture of Catherine Deneuve with her magical diet secret.

Here’s a link to a funny account of a Mireille Guiliano book signing in Houston, Texas, a city that Men’s Fitness has declared contains the “fattest people in the country.”

There’s a very good, funny article in the International Herald Tribue about the French Paradox, one which points at the one of the French Ssecrets to a slim figure is smoking like a chimney. Here a taste.

According to major surveys from both nations, the percentage of French women who smoke is five points higher than the percentage of American women. Researchers have dismissed this difference as statistically insignificant.

A stark gap emerges, however, if you compare elites from both countries. In America, where cigarettes now have a loser image, only about one-tenth of those with college and graduate degrees smoke, compared with about 40 percent of high school dropouts. But in France, nearly a third of upper-income earners smoke, a slightly higher percentage than in the lower classes.

So those chic uppercrust French women trotting around not getting fat smoke far more than their American counterparts.

The writer, Jessica Siegel, is also quick to note that French beauty Catherine Deneuve credits chain-smoking as her beauty secret.

Of course, we here that French Secret would never recommend a three-pack-a-day habit as the sure course to svelteness, beauty and well-being.

Here’s a link to yet another article about the French paradox. This one, by Dr. Andrew Weil, notes that the key to the French diet is quality, not quantity.

[W]ithout a doubt, the French do enjoy their food. Although they are picking up some of our bad habits, they still take time to enjoy food with family and friends. They have no guilt about indulging in really good meals and getting full pleasure from them. The French eat much less processed food than we do and generally have access to higher-quality ingredients. Their food - from fruits and vegetables to cheese and poultry - tastes better than ours. By emphasizing better food, they are able to be satisfied with less.

Overall, Americans are eating more low-quality foods and getting less satisfaction from them. The French do it better.

Indeed, the French do do it better where food is concerned. Americans are catching up in the culinary department, at least on the coasts. Unfortunately, until we can convince most people that eating moderate quantities of high quality food is preferable to bellying up to the crap-filled buffet, we’ll be fighting a losing battle against obesity.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be following the French diet at home. It’s never been easier to do so.