French Women Do Too Get Fat

[nobimbo]

French Women Do Too Get Fat
What the best seller neglects to mention.
By Kate Taylor
Posted Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2005, at 3:23 PM PT



Mireille Guiliano, the French-born CEO of Clicquot Inc., Veuve Clicquot's American subsidiary, has many things to toast these days. Besides being 58 and still weighing what she did in her 20s, she is now a best-selling author, too. Her recently published memoir-cum-diet book, French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure is currently at No. 3 on the New York Times list for hardcover advice books. Since the book's publication, she says, she has been inundated with offers to write a sequel, host a cooking show, and wear various designers' dresses to the Oscars. There has even been discussion of a movie. While it's still too soon to tell, it is possible that Guiliano has helped launch one of the periodic turnovers in American dietary mythology. Out with carbophobia; in with Francomania.

Guiliano's book centers on the well-worn idea often called the "French Paradox": French people, who love their cheese and foie gras and croissants, are nonetheless thinner and have lower rates of heart disease than we diet-obsessed Americans. Scientists used to attribute it to red wine; the current theory is that the French "secret" lies in no one food or ingredient, but in their traditional culture of eating.

As Guiliano tells us, the French have elaborate food rituals. They go to the market several times a week and eat only what's in season. Unlike Americans, who buy processed, flavorless food and therefore need to eat a lot of it to feel gratified, the French, by eating better-tasting food and savoring it more consciously, "fool themselves" into being satisfied with less. That is, French women do, since, in Guiliano's book, it is specifically the women who must master "the useful art of self-deception"—mentally balancing the pleasures of food against the competing desires to fit into the latest fashions and to be attractive to French men, who she says like their wives to be "very elegant, very thin."

Before we come under assault by the rest of the French Women empire (the TV show, the movie) we should take this mythology—Americans, hopelessly schizophrenic about food; French, universally blessed with natural moderation—with a grain of Breton sea salt. The first problem with this picture is that it may already be out of date. Guiliano grew up and learned her eating rituals in the '50s and '60s. Today, thanks to globalization, the French are starting to eat, and look, more like us: According to a recent article in the Times of London, the traditional French meal is eaten by only 20 percent of the population. Instead, they increasingly favor the abbreviated, on-the-go meals of Americans. The national rate of obesity is rising fast. While only 6 percent of the population was obese in 1990, today the proportion is 11.3 percent. That is still well behind the same figure for the United States (22 percent) but on track to match our levels by 2020. The French are not happy about it. In a parliamentary report last spring highlighting the dramatic increase in obesity, legislators proposed launching a new government agency to fight weight gain, to be funded by a tax on high-calorie or high-fat foods.

Which brings us to the second way in which the American/French divide is more complicated than Guiliano acknowledges. The French accept a level of government paternalism that would not go over easily here. The way that French families eat, or until recently ate, is actually a product of state intervention, as Greg Critser pointed out in a 2003 piece in the New York Times. At the beginning of the 20th century, concern over France's high infant mortality rate led to a largely state-sponsored movement called puericulture. The movement's initial focus was on getting mothers to breastfeed; clinics were set up across the country, and the government required factories to have areas for nursing. But puericulture advocates also stressed that overfeeding infants was worse than underfeeding them. For older children, they advised regular mealtimes, modest portions, no seconds, and no snacks. Children's own appetites and preferences were to be ignored. This is the tradition in which Guiliano was raised, and which she proposes to those of her readers who are parents. It is another interesting paradox: The French ability to take pleasure in food, and to choose food based on taste rather than dietary dogma, begins with a child's lack of choice, and a degree of parental and state authoritarianism.

The third problem is that, while they may be admirably successful at staying thin, French women are not necessarily more balanced in their attitudes about food. While many people think of eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia as an American problem, they are, as far as can be measured (and these statistics should always be taken with some degree of skepticism), equally prevalent in France. In the United States, somewhere between 0.5 percent and 3.7 percent of women will be anorexic in their lifetimes, while 1.1. percent to 4.2 percent will suffer from bulimia. Between 2 percent and 5 percent of Americans binge eat. Among young French women, an estimated 1 percent to 3 percent are anorexic; 5 percent are bulimic; and 11 percent have compulsive eating behaviors. Certainly, young French women today are as interested in eating disorders as their American counterparts. While Guiliano enjoys her publishing success here, a quite different book is in the spotlight in France: a memoir of bulimia called Thornytorinx. (The title is an anatomical name for the digestive tract.) The book has been favorably covered by the French press, and its author, a 25-year-old actress named Camille de Peretti, appeared last weekend on one of France's most popular talk shows.

That the incidence of eating disorders in France roughly equals that here suggests that anorexia and bulimia do not require a widespread, openly discussed culture of calorie- or carb-counting and devotion to the gym. They may take slightly different forms, depending on the prevailing national habits, but eating disorders arise wherever thinness is deeply valued and admired.

French women do not care less than American women about being thin; if anything, they may care more. And while much of Guiliano's advice seems sensible, there is also an opening for extremism in her imprecations that we savor our food and refuse to eat anything that isn't of the highest quality and taste. When she met the New York Times' Elaine Sciolino for coffee in Paris, Guiliano took one bite of her croissant, declared it "disgusting," and left the rest on her plate, thereby demonstrating a lesson from her book: "Life is too short to drink bad wine and to eat bad food." Sounds nice enough, but sticking to this philosophy in all circumstances would be remarkably neurotic. What if you're hungry? The scene calls to mind a certain type of weight-obsessed woman, the kind who uses the excuse of a refined palate to mask her suspicion of food (and to justify how little she eats).

The essence of Guiliano's book is the claim that women can trick themselves into experiencing what is actually self-denial as a kind of pleasure. She never questions that most women, if they wish to be attractively thin, will have to play some mental games. But such games are, as Guiliano acknowledges, something that the French generally value. They think of themselves as an old culture, skilled in the arts of irony, hypocrisy, and nuance. We Americans may be innocent, artless, and nuance-allergic, but we are sharp enough to recognize that French women's advantage over us is simply that they are thinner—not that they have better, saner, less complicated attitudes about food. "The useful art of self-deception"? Let 'em have it.

Kate Taylor is an assistant at The New Yorker.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2113911/

[Angrenost]

This reminds me of Dr. William I. Lane 's book "Sharks Don't Get Cancer" (in which he advocates we start harvesting sharks and eating their cartilage). The only problem with the title is that sharks do get cancer, though admittedly at lower rates than higher animals. Anyway, eating their cartilage would not transfer any "cancer fighting" proteins to the human body, as these would be destroyed in digestion.

Books with such declaratory titles always beg to be scrutinized.

:cool:

[mrfreddy]

sharks also don't have gov't agencies and "registered nutritionists" advising them that they really ought to be eating more seaweed and kelp and to lay off the high fat fishy foods...

[Bat Spit]

experiencing what is actually self-denial as a kind of pleasure

Umm. Isn't that part of a text book definition of eating disorder?

I spent several years in France in the 80's. I spent a year in a French boarding school, with French kids.

I do have to agree that I think their quality of food, in general, is better than ours. At least then, it was much less processed, and they have been much more careful with the health of their soil. I have often wondered how much of USerican overeating had to do with soil depletion, over processing, and the fact that our 'food' doesn't actually contain very much nutrition. We go on grazing in a desperate search for vitamins and minerals.

I do remember that being a fat teenager in France was a lonely and unpleasant experience.

Perhaps I'd have done better if breakfast every day wasn't bread, butter, jam, and hot chocolate?

[Nancy LC]

I always figured the French Paradox was they exercise more than us. But I know in Paris I lost weight eating like a pig because of all the stairs up/down to the Metro.

[Angeline]

I disagreed with quite a few a bit of that review, or rather should I say on the tone of the review.

And while much of Guiliano's advice seems sensible, there is also an opening for extremism in her imprecations that we savor our food and refuse to eat anything that isn't of the highest quality and taste.

While it's true that this can be carried to extreme, I think North-Americans need a LOT more of that attitude. It's downright shameful some of the stuff that passes off as food here. And I get the distinct impression that they are lots of teens and many adults that don't even know what good quality and taste is, as they have never experienced it. They go on everyday eating fast food, deli food and processed crap and don't ever know there is so much better out there. If you ask me EVERYONE should be a foodie. That would force manufacturers to stop producing crap and come up with decent food. Oh yeah, that would cost more for sure, but quality over quantity. That's something else that has yet to sink into the North American psyche.

The French ability to take pleasure in food, and to choose food based on taste rather than dietary dogma, begins with a child's lack of choice, and a degree of parental and state authoritarianism

Here again, she makes this sound negative. Children SHOULD have limited decision when it comes to food. Left to their own (and under the relentless onslaught of the marketing machine) they will more often than not pick the worst thing. Children need to be exposed to a wide variety of good (taste and quality) food in order to develop a taste for it. Left to their own device they would happily subsists on a diet of sugary cereal, hot dogs and mac 'n cheese.

[adkpam]

They [adults] go on everyday eating fast food, deli food and processed crap and don't ever know there is so much better out there..... Left to their own device they [children] would happily subsists on a diet of sugary cereal, hot dogs and mac 'n cheese.

I totally agree, and one BIG revelation to me was how much better REAL food tastes than the cardboard I had been eating. I can have that "sensible dinner" that is so essential to weight handling without running into the kitchen an hour later thinking I'm going crazy because I'm so hungry.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...people are eating a lot in America because they are HUNGRY. They are HUNGRY because they aren't eating healthy food. But it's not the couch potato culture, or the merchandizing, or the super-sizing all by itself. These things wouldn't SELL unless people were HUNGRY.

[dina1957]

I grew up being fed like French children: my mother would set three meals a day and disregarded my appeitite or lack thereof most of the times. :lol: I rmeember sitting at the dinner table trying to finish my meal after everyone left, unfortunately, I was suppose to clean my plate. Mother was WWII generation, this explains obesity in post-war generations.
I had to eat BF, lunch and dinner, and since she did the cooking, I ate what she thouight is good: home made soups, eggs, meat, fish, vegetables, and the desert was fruit or home made fruit preserves, jams, or compotes. She knew that when children are given choice, they will choose something sweet, rather than protein based food. The onyl probelm was that she force me to eat when I did not feel like.
So, I've developed taste for the home cooked meals, which were always prepared from scratch, even pasta. and were not too sweet or too salty. Mother made desserts only for big holidays, or birthdays, and she baked mostly fruit pies and tarts, not cakes with lots of frosting. She was not into baking, had no time, and did not like sweets herself, niether did my father. They both love fruit.
She strictly prohibited me from drnking sodas ( we had minerakl water only in a house) and fruit juices, I was only allotted tomatoe juice. In general, she insisted that I do not eat anything that was not home cooked, and for this reason I had to bring my lunch to school and was envy of other children who were given lunch money. The food choices in shcool cafeteria were limited to a variety of pastries, burgers, buns, fried meat and cabbage pirogies, sodas, etc. Not a healthy food at all. It was back in 70s but we kids were not overweight or obese. We were active, jumped rope for hours, played ball, etc. We also walked everywhere and took public trasportation. When I started my family, we would buy fresh prioduce at least every other day from the farmer's market, and cook at home rather than going out every night, we laso had no access to TV dinner, frozen meal, etc. Even though, majority of women in their 40s were pleasantly plump, many even overweight, but very few were obese. Spare tire around the waiste was very common but young women and girls were all slim, simply because everyone was on a some kind of diet: french, english, cabbage soup, you name it. So, we all were professional dieters and this is how we kept slim. :lol: It's so hard for a female to stay thin past childbirth, pregnancies, hormonal fluctuation, etc so it was not easy task.
European (French included) women has not special secret to stay slim. They are constantly undereating, drink coffee and smoke to curb the hunger and raise metabolism, walk everywhere instead of driving, and wear tight fitting and very feminite clothes instead of sweat pants and T-shirts. They also used laxatives and purgatives, like my mohter when she would go to a party and knew she would overeat, she simply would take milk of magnesia.
As for French women, firstly, not all of them are stick thin, middle aged care some spare tire too, but they eat so little and mostly at home, and when you stomach is not stretched becuase of supersized low quality meal depleted from most of nutrients, you feel full on a small amount of tasty, fresh, and very nutriotional food. I'm not surprized, Americans have such a huge sweet tooth, their taste bads are simply spoiled: everything taste either too sweet, or too salty. I think if American women (or men) would get back to the kitchen, and start cooking their meals from scratch, it will make a big difference. Money spend on going out 2-3 times a week, could be used to buy better quality produce, fresh meats, fish, good butter and oil, and then made in delicious and nutritious meals.It does not have to be very expensive, you can still make a dinner even on a budget. Everyone would benefit, I don't say that we should all stop eating out, but make it a special event not an everyday practive.
I fed my children same way as my mother did, and they were fine until we came here and my battle with pizza and soda at school started. :rolleyes: After a while, I simply gave up and lost it to soft drinks :rolleyes: My DD then realized how wrong it was but the damage was done, and now she is trying to lose the extra poundage she gain in high school simply because she would brush off my lectures about soft drinks and junk food. Now she is in college, and she cooks for herself everynight as I do, shops for fresh produce, etc, so I feel like she will be fine in future.
May be growing generations would learn that food can taste good even if it is not too sweet or too salty. I still cook everynight from scratch, no matter how tired I am from work, because I simply enjoy cooking, and also I see it as way to tell my family that I care and love them. I think that Foodnetwork was really a great idea, may be this will motivate young men and women to learn art of cooking and pleasure of sharing a good home cooked meal with your family and friends.
Cheers,
Dina

[Angeline]

It must be very gratifying Dina to know that your daughter, while briefly tempted to taste of the forbidden fruit (junk food), came back to good food.

This is entirely due to you. She was lucky to have you to teach her. After her affair with junk food was over, she realized how much better good home cooked food was. What is sad to me is that is getting rarer. Poverty and lack of time means that many children grow up on crap food and never get to experience anything else. They have nothing to fall back on. So they keep on thinking McD is good food and french fries a side vegetable.

Who is going to teach them if not their parents? The Schools? They are struggling to offer anything beyond academics. The cafeteria will not expose them to anything but more junk food. The industry is perfectly happy with this state of affair as it creates a lot of undemanding customers, willing to accept their swill as food. That leaves pretty much no one. Unless you become wealthy enough to start favoring upscale restaurant, you will never be exposed to the wonders of good food.

Who knows maybe in a few generations, it will be like in the Sci Fi movies, people will happily chow down on brown cubes of paste labelled "steak" with a side of green glop labelled "vegetable".

[Dodger]

Who knows maybe in a few generations, it will be like in the Sci Fi movies, people will happily chow down on brown cubes of paste labelled "steak" with a side of green glop labelled "vegetable".
Uhmmmm Soylent Green.

[Karen]

"Life is too short to drink bad wine and to eat bad food."Yep! I ate and drank myself up to 235 pounds on high quality food.

No white Zinfandel for me; only the best Amarone. And only Hagen Daaz would do. I wouldn't touch a store brand. And of course the best quality pasta, chocolate, hand-made artisan bread, Yukon Gold potatoes, organic popcorn, blah, blah, blah. :lol:

Karen

[Cali]

Walk around Paris and you'll see women and men of every shape and size, just like most places, bar the 3rd world. Try as I might to see chicness in their figures and the way they wore a scarf, I saw only normal human variety. This book is just a clever publishing idea and harmless entertainment, certainly not a revelation of the supposed sophisticated French palate.

[watcher16]

Walk around Paris and you'll see women and men of every shape and size, just like most places, bar the 3rd world. Try as I might to see chicness in their figures and the way they wore a scarf, I saw only normal human variety. This book is just a clever publishing idea and harmless entertainment, certainly not a revelation of the supposed sophisticated French palate.
Maybe normal means for you like in Australia? From friends I hear that if you walk on the street in the US you see enormous types everywhere, to disgusting proportions.

I have the opinion that the weight problems in Europe is a new- and US-imported one. The 'new' fast food culture is the cause of the weight shift. While in Europe most women are quite pleasant in proportions, the fat ones are starting to appear everywhere.

I think the disease is noted in time to stop it, the amount of lean and good looking women is IMO growing as a reaction on the overweight part of the population.

[Quinadal]

Uhmmmm Soylent Green.
We can eat the vegans. All that grain makes them nice and fatty. :p

[mrfreddy]

personally, I prefer grass-fed vegans...

[dina1957]

We can eat the vegans. All that grain makes them nice and fatty. :pMy vegan co-worker is rather udnerweight, she's 5'4" and barely 100 pounds. ;)

[Paleoanth]

Would that be an organic or non organic meat source?

[quietone]

Depends on whether they've taken antibiotics and hormones. :lol: :lol:

[fatnewmom]

When my German cousin visited me in the US about 10 years ago, she was amazed/shocked/enthralled by how many fat people there are here. We went to an amusement park (Bush Gardens, Va), and she stared at & remarked upon all the fat people there -- not to be rude, but b/c it was truly a new experience for her. To her & a lot of Europeans, it was evidence of our US greed, wealth, and desire for "bigger and better" and "more! more! more!". She had heard about our obesity problem as if it was legend, and was astounded by the reality of it & amazed that so many people could carry so much excess weight on their frames.

My cousin was used to healthy, small meals -- it was the norm in her culture. That was 10 years ago. I'm not sure if anything has changed since.

We also had two separate exchange students when I was growing up, one from Switzerland & the other from Belgium. They each had identical experiences to my cousin. The one from Switzerland tried McDonalds for the first time, and ended up hoarding cheeseburgers & sundaes in the fridge (she would buy them in bulk and save them as "snacks") -- she ended up gaining 40 pounds!!!! She lost it after her return to Switzerland & her normal diet.

[gotbeer]

PULPS

Lean Cuisine

by Sacha Zimmerman

Only at TNR Online | Post date 03.17.05

French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure
By Mireille Guiliano, (Alfred A. Knopf, 272 pp., $22.00)

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050314&s=zimmerman031705

Mes petits, there is an ever so charming little diet book out right now that we simply must try if we are ever to be as slim and chic as nos amis en France. London's Daily Telegraph called this enchanting gem "part Proustian memoir, part guide to living well." All we have to do is emulate the French in as many ways as possible, and we shall find ourselves transformed into happier and leaner Americans. Sounds appetizing, n'est-ce pas?

Ugh. First the Iraq war and now this! If you didn't already have a reason to hate the French, Mireille Guiliano serves one up on a silver platter in a little book cutely titled French Women Don't Get Fat. Guiliano, the petite and wealthy CEO of Clicquo (producers of Veuve Clicquot champagne), has decided to enter the diet book arena with a few tips from her years of experience as a slender French woman. This is, in fact, the sum total of her expertise on health and weight issues: "I am no physician, physiologist, psychologist, nutritionist, or any manner of '-ist' who helps or studies people professionally. I was, however, born and raised in France."

This fantastically chauvinistic statement is offered up on the very first page of the book. C'est incroyable, non? But perhaps more incredible is the premise of the book itself--that "French women do as I do: they eat as they like and don't get fat."

That's right: We American fatties, with our gyms and our diet industry, would be ever so much slimmer if we just ate like the French. This sounds wonderful, non? Steak au poivre, piles of pommes frites with mayonnaise, crocks of cassoulet and onion soup with gruyére, pains from the local baker, and tarte tatin for dessert! But apparently we Americans have misunderstood once again. According to Guiliano, eating like the French means developing a thirst for leeks and beets--which will surely be more fulfilling than a slice of pizza--and consuming carbohydrates and sweets in very small portions, very rarely. Hmm. C'est vraiment français?

Guiliano prescribes "Miracle" leek soup to kick-start your French lifestyle. This amazing elixir, which Guiliano shares with us in the confiding manner of a concerned sister who understands that we all have "nos petits démons," will help you drop three pounds over the weekend. It's hard to believe, I know. How could drinking diuretic leek water for a few days possibly help us shed anything other than water weight? Plus, it sounds unhealthy and distasteful, to say the least. But I am merely a coarse American without a finely tuned appreciation for root vegetables. "Pity those who don't love the sweet and delicious taste and delicate texture of leeks." Ah, me.

Once you have purged yourself of any hint of American calories, you may begin the "recasting" process and be on your way to "living like a French woman." To save you the trouble of actually buying this book, here's the gist of the process: Buy all your food fresh from open-air markets (you'll need to go several times per week); eat three meals per day while sitting down at a table with nice china, lingering for a good hour and a half; carry a sachet of fragrant lavender to smell when passing a bakery; drink water, but from a glass, not out of a sports bottle (Guiliano actually spends ten pages on the comparative mineral tastes and strengths of different countries' bottled water); walk more and take the stairs; wear garters and lingerie to remind you to stay slim and sexy when dining; and of course take pleasure in everything you do.

Putting some of Guiliano's sillier notions aside, I don't doubt that this works. Here's the problem. Many of us Americans actually have jobs that afford us little time or money for the extravagances she proposes. And anyone living in the great sprawl that is our American suburbs is probably thinking, What open-air markets? The truth is, I'd love to live like Guiliano, but I can't afford the best restaurants, I don't have access to farmers' markets several times per week, and I don't have the time to prepare most of my meals--let alone eat them over the course of several hours. So I grab a salad from the deli, eat at my desk, and try to make it to the gym a few days per week. It's not romantic, but until we change the entire fabric of American life, Guiliano's plan is untenable for the average American.

But what's more irritating than her lack of appreciation for American realities are her blissful ruminations on her charmed life. She seems to have grown up in a fairy tale. "One of the priceless charms of wild mushroom picking is the aromas of the fields and the sous-bois (forest floor)," she dreamily recounts. "When I was a kid, we'd leave right after breakfast, the morning dew still hanging on every leaf. The smell of wet dead leaves was mysterious and captivating (to this day, I can summon it up only in tasting some red wines and old Champagnes or smelling a particular type of tobacco)."

And, speaking of champagne, let's not forget to plug the company: "I still remember my first thrilling sips with the grown-up glass. For once, I had a great weekend story to share with my classmates on Monday. None of them had ever tried Champagne, much less held a proper Champagne glass! ... It turns out the Champagne I was drinking was Veuve Clicquot." No! What are the odds? In addition to a brief history of champagne with a capital "C," a few more childhood memories, some cooking ideas for champagne, and some thoughts on the importance of champagne at any dignified occasion ("I would save up to have a party with Champagne, or have no party at all"), she gets positively passionate: "To me Champagne is magic. It's also a supremely feminine wine. I love everything about it: the seductive honey color, the tiny bubbles (they should dance for you), the lovely, long, yeasty aftertaste. I love the mood Champagne creates, the feeling no other wine can come close to: celebration, life-affirming joy." Long, yeasty aftertaste?

After the pitches for Veuve Clicquot, it all goes downhill. The next thing I know, Guiliano is literally teaching me how to exercise (try "ironing your own clothes"), to breathe ("alternate nostril breathing" because "French is a very nasal language"), to sleep ("In Provence in summer, the bloom of lavender delivers a natural sleep aid into the night air"), to stand ("French women learn to hold their chin high and have good posture"), to have sex ("[Sensuality] is something every woman can learn to achieve, and French women channel more intuitively than most"), and even to yawn ("the sound of a good yawn releases tension") like a French woman. Shouldn't France's mind-control programme be more subtle than this?

The only real asset of this book is that the recipes--leek soup aside--sound pretty good. If not exactly my idea of French (no béchamel sauce in sight), they still seem perfectly delectable: pork chops with apples, grilled chicken with rosemary, grilled peaches with lemon thyme, red snapper with almonds. But a closer look reveals that they are nothing more mysterious than balanced meals--quelle surprise! At the end of the day, Guiliano's book is as basic as eat right, take everything in moderation, move your body, and drink water. Well, duh.

If the French really eat like this, the famous paradox is solved. "Recasting" oneself as a French bombshell is as simple as healthy living. But I hardly think this is the revelation readers were hoping for. Americans want to know that they can eat whatever they want (including heaping bowls of pommes frites and gratins), quit their gym memberships, and drink alcohol without getting fat. And that's why this book is selling so well. French Women Don't Get Fat baits us chubby Américaines with the secret to the French paradox and then switches to the same old advice we've heard since birth, and it does so in the annoyingly aloof voice of a woman who was born into luxury and has never had to shed more than 25 pounds in her life! I'll take my diet advice from good old Oprah, thank you very much.

Sacha Zimmerman, former assistant managing editor at TNR, is an associate editor at Reader's Digest.

[VAgrrl]

my mother fed us on very simple whole foods, not a processed food in sight. Her mother also cooked that way.

I felt so deprived as a kid, with no bags of pop corn, chips, cookies not to metion soft drinks around the house like my friends had. All soft drinks, unless it were a special occasion, were strictly forbidden, much to my displeasure.

little did I know that I was learning to eat in a healthy way, as an adult I drank very little soda or junk food, don't even really like the taste/texture of most of it (altho potato chips/crisps are sinfully good!)

was slim all my life, my weight gain crept on after 40 and menopause and was due, I believe, to insulin resistance.

that's a typical pattern in my family: thin in youth with gradual weight gain after 40 and onset-diabetes in some cases

also my carb in-take was way too high, "I could live on bread" was one of my fave expressions!

funny, tho, I really don't miss bread all that much anymore, after 5 years of low carb. And lc bread really helps.

[VAgrrl]

The one from Switzerland tried McDonalds for the first time, and ended up hoarding cheeseburgers & sundaes in the fridge (she would buy them in bulk and save them as "snacks") -- she ended up gaining 40 pounds!!!! She lost it after her return to Switzerland & her normal diet.

hmm, interesting, methinks she would have gained weight on her normal Swiss diet too if she had gorged like that.

I had the opposite experience, I spent two months in Europe (mostly France, which I loved) and gained 10 lbs. Came right off when I came back home and returned to my normal American diet.

I fell in love with the creme caramel and chocolate mousse, the most delicious bread I've ever had in my life, the wine, the cheeses, hot chocolate and bread and jam for breakfast, scrumpcious coffee with thick cream, etc, etc, etc. No wonder I gained weight!

btw, I live in Virginia and I don't see fat people all over the place. There are overweight people here, like anywhere, but I see lots of heavy people when we go to England and France too.

the US is a huge place, there are pockets of the country that tend to have heavier people, maybe, but that's not the whole country. Go to NYC, Washington, LA, Chicago, you won't see enormous people, most are just normal.

I think the 'fat American' legend in Europe is just a subtle form of America-bashing clothed in concerns for health. Just another way to shake their heads, tut-tut and disapprove of our 'peasant nation.'

[Futurist]

Kind of off the subject, but IMO Guiliano should champion imported raw milk cheeses such as many of those given AOC status. I think it is very short sided of the FDA to consider these such a threat when there really is not much evidence indicating they are terribly dangerous and considering that European cheeses, particularly those given AOC or DOP status are much more likely to have come from cows, sheep, and goats that have been mostly grass rather than grain fed which enhances both the taste and nutritional value of cheese.

[emmy207]

I have spent a lot of time in France and I have never scene an obese French person. Some have some middle aged spread but never to the extent that is now seen in the UK.
The thing about the French is that a meal is an event. In many parts lunch is still a two hour daily event with many courses.
The children sit at the table with the adults and eat the same as their parents. They do not rush, they do not eat in front of the TV, they do not give the children special meals of chicken nuggets, in case they do not like the fish.
That bothers me about the British culture, in pubs and resturants, they have children's menus which are nothing but low quality junk. Why can't the children just have smaller portions of the adult menu?
A meal is a time to relax and talk with the fanily, and it helps that the wives are often at home.
Those that work still understand the basic principle of moderation.
When I was in France, as a child I stayed with a French family, they ate chocolate sandwiches after school, they ate Pain au Chocolat and creamy sauces. But they were not fat any of them. The father was a little plump but
nothing more.

[MoNoCarb]

I think the 'fat American' legend in Europe is just a subtle form of America-bashing clothed in concerns for health. Just another way to shake their heads, tut-tut and disapprove of our 'peasant nation.'[/QUOTE]

I COMPLETELY AGREE. But it ain't subtle.

I'm an American and I live in London and believe me, there are plenty of fat people here. But BOY, isn't it FUN to watch Supersize Me and laugh your European arse off at all the revolting, out of control yanks! I couldn't believe the self-righteous revelling that went on. Not to mention the television shows shown here about American kids in fat camp - COMPLETE anti-American voyeurism.

And, by the way, I weighed about 145 pounds when I moved to London in 1999. I got fat in Europe, believe it or not, mostly from drinking prodigious quantities of nice reds and eating potatoes roasted in GOOSE FAT for Sunday brunch. They even eat something here called a "chip buttie". What is it, I hear you ask?

Wait for it....

A FRENCH FRY AND WHITE BREAD SANDWICH. Usually slathered with ketchup.

Oh yeah - we're the disgusting ones.

Give me a break.

[emmy207]

It is not an Attack on America but the difference between Northern and Southern European countries. Germany, Scandianvia, Russia all have bad eating habits. Too and a higher proportion of bigger people. Germans, Austrians, eat high fat food, drink beer, eat cakes etc, The Scandinavians have alcohol problems because it is dark there half the year and too cold to do much else!!! The Northern European nations are the heavy potato eating nations.
It is annoying that the French are so smug. Remember that the women are tiny too, it the same way that Indian women are, they make most of us feel huge.
Films like Supersize Me, are good because so many people watch it and swear never to touch McDonalds again!!!And it will be a great thing for McDonalds to loss money. It was made by an American and yes it is amusing and it is a warning to us here in the UK too what were are in danger of becoming. American portion sizing has always amused us here.
If you are the UK you may have seen programmes such as "You are what you eat" were British families are having their lives transformed but a change of diet. Dr Gillian McKeith makes a point of examining peoples poo, to assess there health. She gets them of the junk and eating fresh fruit, veggies, good grains etc. And it has work well for many people.
So we are fond of poking fun at ourselves as a nation.

But the rise in obesity in the UK is fairly recent. Since the country has been satuarated by American fast food chains and agressive TV advertising. Krispy Kreme donuts has just arrived too. Many people in the UK are disgusted by it.
Though bad school lunches are a British thing, but the introduction of Coke machines is school is new. Fizzy drinks were banned when I was at school. And the reaction to the Jamie Oliver think as made people sit up and pay attention to their children's diet more.
And yes the British diet can be unhealthy, though not many cook their roast potatoes in goose fat unless it is Christmas.
But we do not eat the portions that are famous in the states and food is more expensive here.
The chip butty is a mostly Northern thing along with Mushy peas, chips with gravy etc.(And British chips are the thick one, not like French Fries at all. And a chip butty can be very nice of a cold winters day, but we now it is bad for us!!) That is because they are poorer, heavily industrialised part of the UK. And it is cheap food and a cultural thing. Though curry has taken over from fish and chips as the favourite take away, which is also high fat and carb.
If you look at other peoples shopping trolleys, it is easy to see why they are fat with fat children, they have copied the American lifestyle of eating too much sugar, salt and bad fats, they buy boxes of doughnuts, sugar filled cereals, cookies, hugh bottles of Coke, Turkey Twizzlers and bad cheap white bread.
Growing up (I am only 32), I had a doughtnut as a rare treat when out shopping with my mum during holidays, a fizzy drink was one can with Sunday dinner, cereal was Musli or Weetabix and junk food were Fish Fingers, spaggetti hoops or a penguin biscuit.

[Nancy LC]

LOL! Thanks for the giggles NoMo. Hey, everyone always makes fun of the "guys over there", especially if they're doing a little better. If you're on the top of the ladder, you gotta know other folks are going to be aiming for you. I can live with it.

It is annoying that the French are so smug. Remember that the women are tiny too, it the same way that Indian women are, they make most of us feel huge.

Well, size has advantages. We can go beat them on the noggin with their haute coutier.

[emmy207]

LOL! Thanks for the giggles NoMo. Hey, everyone always makes fun of the "guys over there", especially if they're doing a little better. If you're on the top of the ladder, you gotta know other folks are going to be aiming for you. I can live with it.



Well, size has advantages. We can go beat them on the noggin with their haute coutier.


I mean that Indian women and French women have smaller bones, my mother is not overweight but she is big boned so she has always found she fits into German, English or American designer labels, where as the French clothes will not fit her.
Stand next to woman as Asian descent and most British women feel fat and arkward. (Though the older Indian women hide alot of fat under their sari's)
The British do make fun of our own eating habits. We know that Scotland with it's deep fried Mars bars and heart attack breakfasts are the most unhealthy in the UK. We know our more traditional food like Toad in The Hole, or Roast Beef with all the trimmings, fish and chips, treacle pudding etc are bad but good. And that those meals have been replaced by tv dinners, take aways and people rarely cooking from scratch.
We also have a massive problem with binge drinking which is further unmining our countries health.
I think that in the UK you have to realise that there is polictical spin going on between those that love are close types with the USA and would prefer to be closer so that we can leave the EU. The other side wants us to be less involved in with the USA and deeper with the EU and the negative spin is the French are thin, the Americans fat which do you want to be more like!!!!
That said when it comes to American corparation, American businesses are winning fight in the hearts and minds of many Brits.

[Nancy LC]

. We know that Scotland with it's deep fried Mars bars

I'll be darned, I hear that do that in the Southern US too. I've even heard they do stuff like pick the floaties out of deep fryers and deep fry that stuff again, and it eat. Sounds gross, but my brother says it tastes good.

I'm a small-boned, but tall, American. Of course, you can't really tell because I'm well-insulated.

[eve25]

i'm a little late on this discussion but i saw this lady on oprah and i just wanted to yell at her. i mean its not like she is saying anything new! oh, eat everything in moderation? wow what a new concept.
please, anyone who ever had a real weight problem just knows how oversimplified a statement like that is.

you can not bring the french/european "eating habits" to america. its just one value of many! Everything there is different. The only experiences i can speak of are in Greece where everyone is soooo skinny. i had a cousin who used to be a size 12 and said they just dont make clothes for her and she wanted to come to america just to shop for something that would fit her!
even if everything she said was new and innovative, it's still too late for most of us. not that she would know but, once your fat, then BAM...it changes everything.

of course, raising your kids with a good mentality towards food and healthy choices is #1. prevention is key, so on that i do agree with her.

[ItsTheWooo]

I totally agree, and one BIG revelation to me was how much better REAL food tastes than the cardboard I had been eating. I can have that "sensible dinner" that is so essential to weight handling without running into the kitchen an hour later thinking I'm going crazy because I'm so hungry.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...people are eating a lot in America because they are HUNGRY. They are HUNGRY because they aren't eating healthy food. But it's not the couch potato culture, or the merchandizing, or the super-sizing all by itself. These things wouldn't SELL unless people were HUNGRY.

Excellent point.
I'm going to go further. It's not an accident that everyone in america is starving all day. It is totally intentional.

We are a capitalist country. This has given us great prosperity but also it has quietly enslaved us to hidden masters - industries. We, the people, are brutally and mercilessly controlled by exploitative profiteers. We are told we are free every second of the day, but how true is that? How can you be free when everything you think, believe and aspire to want is a chain of conclusions that have been carefully fed to you so as to produce a desired result? The things we want and think we need, the truths we know and faith we believe has been fed to us without any objective fair presentation of an alternative so the conclusion we undoubtedly reach is the one they want us to believe (the powerful, rich, interested parties)... it's like carrots before a work horse.

I completely believe food manufacturers KNOW and WANT their products to cause metabolic diseases that destroy the body's ability to regulate energy synthesis. Because you see, if the body has a really hard time keeping itself fueled because it can't burn fat due to the fact their cheap products raise insulin so it is shunting everything away to storage, then that means the body is going to act as if it is starving. What does the body do when it is always in an energy slump, always starving for fuel?
1) It increases intensity of taste, perception of flavor, your desire for it. This is particularly true of sugars, but all foods and flavors in general. I notice when I'm in deep ketosis, food often tastes so much *different*, it's more bland and unappealing OR alternately it's sooo intense and sickening (packaged food especially). I don't have that desire to over eat just cause it's good. I only want to eat enough to fill myself.
2) It makes you extremely hungry. If the body can't get enough energy because your hormones are all messed up, this is going to cause the body to make you want to eat more. It is an unsatisfiable hunger, too, because the foods you are eating are only contributing to the problem. Often times eating just makes things worse in my experience.

This taste/food seeking state is really good for business, because if people are hungrier they are going to buy more product, request larger portions and pay for them too.

Basically industry has figured out how to trick a sea of bodies into thinking they are starving amidst plenty of food. They are no better than drug pushers. They market these cheap refined foods with intense cheap flavor agents (salt, sugar, MSG and other chemicals) and appetite stimulating colors and textures to vulnerable parties (almost everyone). Just like drug addiction, the food addiction these products trigger are not without consequences. Obesity, diabetes, psychological and emotional trauma (from obesity, from abnormal eating desires/behaviors), all types of eating disorders... food addiction is just as serious as being addicted to alcohol or drugs. They don't care.

[watcher16]

eat everything in moderation?

you can not bring the french/european "eating habits" to america. its just one value of many! Everything there is different

Hi Eve,

With "...eat everything" you may have to add "...everything they normally eat" which can be very different from others. I think you may exclude fast food from this for instance, and include lots of healthy food, vegetables, fish, olive oil etc. So if you do that in moderation you are eating really good.

The mediterranean diet is seen as the most healthy on the planet, I would not see why you could not start doing that. I know we did change to that in the past decades, mainly because I love eating and dining at home every day. :bhug:

When I was at school, in the french book was a story about children, getting home, making homework, play, having dinner and go to sleep.

I really couldn't figure out how that could be, what a strange way of living. When I grew up I understood their dinner started really late, at eight or even later, and took the main part of the evening. It's a social gathering of the family and time for relations. That's why they go to sleep afterwards.

Here at that time, and still for many, food was a 20 minute "feed fast and get on" necessity. The quicker done the better! :devil:

Well, we changed to dining in mediterreanean style under influence of vacations in France and Italy, cultural media (movies, books, tv) and we love it! That it's good for your health is a real bonus :)

[IdahoSpud]

ItsTheWooo,

I agree with much of what you posted. The processed food industry must be well aware that their products are slow metabolic poison.

I'm not sure they're quite as malignant as you seem to think - that they want to keep us in a persistent state of hormone imbalance and hunger, so that they can sell us more product. I *suspect* that's simply a very welcome side-effect :)

What seems to be the case is intense competition for market share of low-profit, but high volume junk food. The competition fosters innovations in every company's food lab for ever-tastier and high calorie density food - to everyone's detriment. But that's OK if you make money while doing it, right?

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the most vibrant and competitive economy in the world also showed the first signs of an unhealthy processed food diet - obesity.

It should also come as no surprise that as trade barriers drop and other countries allow these unhealthy products to compete against local cuisine/diet/customs, that they are beginning to experience the same problems.

Happily, we can be saved by another industry - big pharma! They can sell us massive amounts of statins, glucophage, insulin, and fen/phen (ok, maybe not *that*).

I'd say you nailed it though.

[Kristine]

Very interesting thread. :thup:

You could argue that part of my success is doing what this lady advocates. I don't have a car, so right there, I'm more active than the average person. I shop at least three times a week, and since I can only buy what I can carry home, we eat a LOT of fresh food. So while most of North America will probably never return to that European pattern of shopping and food prep, there's no reason why you can't choose to do so. I think a lot of LCers do without realizing it.

I agree with the comments on our junk food industry. I don't think it's so much that there's a conspiracy to keep people sick; after all, dead people can't buy your product anymore. I think it comes down to tougher competition, and if they want our money, and they have to fight each other tooth and nail to do it. The way I see this most commonly is the constant, unending recycling of the same junk food, aggressively advertised. Like, there's always a "new" pizza at Pizza Hut. This special new pizza is cut into little rectangles so you can rip 'em and dip 'em. Ooh, ahh! And Taco Bell - "let's invent a new way of wrapping cheese and taco road-kill-full-of-soy, and give it a new Mexican-sounding name." Oh, yum, I just have to try that! News flash: it's the same junk repackaged! :rolleyes: Until people wake up and accept that, they'll keep being slaves to that carrot (too bad it isn't a vegetable) being dangled in front of them.

[eve25]

Hi Eve,

With "...eat everything" you may have to add "...everything they normally eat" which can be very different from others. I think you may exclude fast food from this for instance, and include lots of healthy food, vegetables, fish, olive oil etc. So if you do that in moderation you are eating really good.
actually that is a different point entirely. many many many people truly think "everything in moderation" including this french lady. she was on oprah eating cake and pastry and croissants....however only a few bites of them. and for many people this works so i am not against it. however, to advise us obese people to "just do that, its so easy" is really oversimplifying the problem.

The mediterranean diet is seen as the most healthy on the planet, I would not see why you could not start doing that. I know we did change to that in the past decades, mainly because I love eating and dining at home every day. :bhug:


well...a few years back i went to greece for a month and i lost about 10 pounds (and i was A LOT thinner back then). i was also a vegetarian.
Everyday i ate hot bread, cheese, fresh fruit salad, yogurt and honey, figs, french fries, tzatziki, salad, and some sort of sweet, pastry, or cookie. Often i would eat omelets, fish, spinach or cheese pie, grilled cheese, rice, potatos, meat-free gyros, and pizza.
and i LOST weight. some things i noticed were...
1)everything was FRESH. rarely did anything come out of a box, can, or bag. food shopping was everyday/every other day.
2) we were NEVER home. we were out all the time. beach, bar, club, shopping, sightseeing, eating (which takes hours), cafes, etc.
3) we walked a lot!
4) the food options were vast but the crappy food options were very limited. mcdonalds was not "convenient" like it is here. its more convenient to go to the small family restaurant down the street and eat homeade food.

a lot of these things arent so easy to do here. the market for me isnt so convenient to just pop in everyday. nothing is within walking distance. lifestyle here is more rushed and we basically live to work, instead of work to live. and crappy food is EVERYWHERE.

but above it all is....i am so much more overweight now that me and food have a totally different relationship. trust me, although i have never been "skinny" i cant explain to you how different 300 feels from 200.

[watcher16]

a lot of these things arent so easy to do here. the market for me isnt so convenient to just pop in everyday. nothing is within walking distance. lifestyle here is more rushed and we basically live to work, instead of work to live. and crappy food is EVERYWHERE.

You can overcome this, a freezer and a shopping list of healthy food will help you here. Take a look at how Megsy81 did this. http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?p=5368173#post5368173 Planning your food ahead is a good strategy.

but above it all is....i am so much more overweight now that me and food have a totally different relationship. trust me, although i have never been "skinny" i cant explain to you how different 300 feels from 200.

Since I went from 30% bodyfat to now 13%, I know how women look different at me now...It feels quit different. Therefore I would invite you to see diet not as a burden but as a party to enjoy life, it really can be that way! :wave:

[eve25]

You can overcome this, a freezer and a shopping list of healthy food will help you here.

well obviously...people can overcome a lot of things. and shopping is just ONE of many differences in the 2 cultures.

[watcher16]

I go next week on holiday to France, so I hope to enjoy the easy way of living for a couple of weeks!