Fench women don’t get fat…Not too fast…
French women don’t get fat. This sentence brought fame to Mireille Guiliano who wrote a book about it and who’s now publishing recipes for those who fantasize about looking like a slim French woman. Don’t buy them! Because French women don’t get fat, they get fatter. Apparently, Ms Guiliano isn’t aware of the ObEpi research study that was released last year. The ObEpi study has been conducted every three years since 1997 and is the most comprehensive document -25,286 people over 18 replied- on French people’s weight.
So, what are the facts? If you read French, you can get the complete study on the Roche.fr website. If you don’t, shame on you.
- 31.9% of the 18+ French are overweight vs. 30.6% in 2006;
- 14.5% are obese vs. 13.1% in 2006;
- French women are fatter than French men: 15.1% are obese vs. 13.9% of the men;
- The older you are, the fatter you are with a peak for the people between 55 and 64;
- The richer you are, the thinner you are.
So why French people are getting fatter? Do they eat too much foie gras? Too much andouillette? Too much cassoulet? If it were true…If they were trying to kill themselves like the protagonists of Marco Ferreri’s La grande bouffe by overeating…Alas, it’s much simpler and sadder. They’re not much different from American or English people -even if they think they are-, they’re just a bit behind.
French people eat more and more crap, fewer fresh products and more processed food for simple reasons. It’s simpler, faster, and getting cheaper. They love McDonald’s and Mc Donald’s loves them. There are 1,184 McDonald’s “restaurants” there employing more than 55,000 people for a revenue of 3.3 billion Euros in 2008 (latest figure available), a steady growth since 2004. There is also a local competitor called Quick that has 364 “restaurants” and is owned by the French government. And, of course, French people don’t exercises enough if they exercise. Can you name a French athlete, except Zinédine Zidane who was a very good soccer player before becoming a master head-butter? Keep searching…
And unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be over. People are getting obese younger and younger and French people are not really on the verge of changing their (bad) habits.
