PressEthic

French Women Don't Get Fat, huh?

Well, according to this article, apparently some do. In fact, a lot do. A recent study shows:

Nearly 42 percent of the French population older than 15 years has a weight problem, an ObEpi-Roche survey showed on Tuesday. Almost a third is overweight and 12.4 percent is obese.

So much for that hypothesis, made famous last year by author Mireille Guiliano, in her New York Times bestseller, "French Women Don't Get Fat." This article explains the point of the book:

Last year the bestseller French Women Don't Get Fat 'explained' how a bit of common sense combined with a moderate intake of calorie-filled delicacies could ensure a perfect figure.

Its author, Mireille Guiliano, 60, claimed that traditional French ways of choosing and preparing food ensured good health and figure.

Guiliano's argument is based more on lifestyle: the way French women seem to enjoy eating, while Americans just obsess over every calorie consumed. And in that sense, it still holds its value. But the end conclusion about French women is simply false.

This fact did not go unnoticed by Guiliano, who changed the title of her book to "Those French Women Who Don't Get Fat," for the French translation, as reported in this article. The same article points out one critique of the book, which has been confirmed by this study.

People in lower income groups are much more likely to put on excess weight, vindicating critics who suggested that Miss Guiliano's book, French Women Don't Get Fat, was misleading because it applied mainly to middle-class Parisians.

So why are French women gaining weight? The reason may not be French in origin at all. In fact, it may be as American as a quarter pounder. The Daily Mail article explains:

The reality, however, is that McDonald's and Burger King are now regular features of towns and cities across France.

Family meals are being replaced by supermarket ready dinners. Even Miss Guiliano has admitted that her book's title may have to be revised.

"Of course some French women get fat," she said. "I find it obscene, frightening, that France has one of the largest number of McDonald's outside America.

Perhaps some might find it obscene, frightening, that they bought Guiliano's book thinking it was based on some actual fact.