Joe Ray

March 14, 2005 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Paris - It’s one of their irritating hallmarks. Along with a reputation for rude waiters and a penchant to be politically exasperating, the French are so annoyingly skinny.

Behind all the skinniness is the “French paradox,” a largely unexplained phenomenon that seemingly allows the French to smoke like chimneys and scarf down cheese, goose liver and wine, all while remaining in relatively good health and irritating Americans.

There’s even a best-selling new book on the subject, duly titled “French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure” written by a Frenchwoman in New York, Mireille Guiliano, who seems bent on the idea of rubbing our non-skinny noses in it.

It appears, however, that Guiliano might have missed the release of a French government report last spring saying that unless the French act fast, by the year 2020, they’ll be as obese as Americans.

The report, released by French Sen. Claude Saunier, looks at how France is slowly adopting what it calls the “American model” in its rise of obesity levels and looks to create a national agency to combat the problem.

“The United States gathers together all of the known causes of being overweight and obese,” the report states, citing a list that includes, among others: foods high in calories, huge portions, sitting in front of the TV and low levels of exercise.

French dietitian Bridgitte Cabrol quickly dispatches the paradox: “We used to have a certain gastronomy,” she says, “but that’s history.”

“Now,” she adds, “we’re eating big quantities of food with few vegetables and accompanying it with sugary drinks.”

She is also quick to point out that the paradox focuses more on the tangentially related effects of diet on people’s cardiovascular systems, but concedes that a nation of fat Frenchmen (and women) wouldn’t leave much reason for bringing it up anymore.

In the summer of 2003, findings from a joint study between the University of Pennsylvania and the French national scientific research institute, CNRS, revealed that though the French eat a higher percentage of fat in their diet, much of the success of the paradox is due to smaller portion sizes. Now, however, gastric bypass surgery, once considered a terribly foreign concept, has reached French shores.

Oh la lard! The French do get fat. Graphic/Gary Markstein

With an office in central Paris and one in the middle-class Parisian suburb of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, Cabrol sees a wide variety of patients and refutes the idea that obesity afflicts a certain class of people in France.

“People do, however, have slightly more money than they used to, allowing them to eat quickly or eat (heavier) prepared foods,” she says.
Don’t know how to cook

Her patients, who come either by a doctor’s recommendation or by word of mouth, are looking to learn one of two things: how to get skinnier or how to eat better.

One of the major changes leading to the expansion of waists is the loss of know-how in the kitchen, the dietitian says. “The tendency now is for people to leave school and get a job without ever really learning how to cook,” she says. As a result, “we’ve forgotten how to eat well.”

Two statistics from the U.S. model that may disturb the French and their government the most are the human toll of obesity and its cost to the health care system. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta cites more than 300,000 deaths a year in the United States and $117 billion in “economic cost to the nation.” In France, whose total population is 60 million, the statistics are proportionally as daunting, and Saunier’s report estimates the current cost to the French health care system at about $6.6 billion.

The near-ubiquitous Parisian pharmacies seemed to be the first to jump on the diet product bandwagon, and now it’s hard to find one that hasn’t given much of the prime space in its front window to display ads for weight-loss pills, creams and tonics. One Parisian pharmacy worker even refers to what she calls an “overwhelming” number of new diet products arriving in the past year.
American fast food

What has changed in the last 20 years in France? Some think globalization, or to put a finer point on it, Americanization. McDonald’s, for example, first opened its doors in France in the city of Strasbourg in 1979; now there are more than 1,000 across the country, more than half of which have opened in the last 10 years.

With or without what the French call “Mac-Do,” more and more people are doing what only tourists used to do - eating on the go. In addition, the prepackaged microwave food market has grown by leaps and bounds over the last several years.

People, especially those outside of Paris, now grocery shop at “hypermarkets” - giant stores that are hybrids between a supermarket and discount store.

As a result, the quaint open-air market has received an unanticipated bump in status, now attracting customers who want to make something special.
Stocking up

Cabrol also cites Parisians who make weekend trips to the suburbs to stock up (and economize) on a week’s worth of food, “but then when Friday night rolls around and their tiny fridge is empty, they pull out a frozen pizza.”

Along with a rise in public awareness, calls for legislation against vending machines in schools have not gone unnoticed by the food industry.

Agitated vending machine companies fought back last summer with the creation of a group called “Touche pas À mon goûter!” or, roughly translated, “Hands off my snack!”

The companies, which rely on school-based vending machines for about 10% of their revenue, defend themselves by saying that they are testing new products such as fruit- and milk-based drinks they’re looking to offer in their machines.

Schools, according to Cabrol, are key elements in the fight against obesity.

“Right now, what we’re doing is more reaction than prevention,” she says.

“Teaching nutrition in school is where this could change, but it’s not on the docket yet.”

“Obesity,” she says, “has a promising future here.”

Across Paris at their English language bookstore, The Red Wheelbarrow, Canadian Penelope Le Masson and American Abigail Altman explain why they think Guiliano’s book has become a success.

“There’s this mystique (about France) that people have wanted to grab for centuries,” says Altman.

“Anglophone readers love reading almost anything about French and France,” echoes Le Masson.

“French people see it in the window and giggle,” she said. “They think it’s funny there could be a book about this.”