February 1, 2006--Our Fault . . . Again?
I'm about to take off for a visit to Paris, but when I read the NY Times article linked below, to tell you the truth I am having second helpings. Sorry, second thoughts.
In spite of the recent interest in a book about why French women are so thin (Mireille Guilano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat) and what all of us could learn from them (each day smoke as many cigarettes as possible and have at least two glasses of Montrechet), it appears that obesity is a growing problem in France. Forty-two percent of the population is overweight. And since children are becoming obese at a faster rate than adults (increasing at 17 percent each year as compared with 7 percent for adults), it is projected that by the year 2020, the French will be as fat as we are in the United States.
What’s going on here? A number of things have been observed to explain this disturbing phenomenon: First of all, contrary to the perception that the French sit around for hours every evening smacking their lips over magnificently prepared dishes made from the freshest of ingredients, it appears that they have taken to gulping down their food. An average French person today spends just 38 minutes over dinner whereas 25 years ago they lingered for 88 minutes.
Then, it’s the fault of women—in the past, it is claimed, a meal in France was such a ritual that eating between meals was considered to be a family misdemeanor. But now, since so many mothers need to work outside the home and thus have less time than in the past to shop at the local markets and select special things for the dinners they would laboriously prepare, they are blamed for irresponsibly setting their kids up in front of the TV and shoving unhealthy food at them.
But then of course there is the real reason the French have an obesity problem, and who else is there to blame than us? Because of how we have so debased the culinary habits of the West, the French have been seduced into a sedentary life of between-meal snacking and binging on fast foods. Right there on the Champs Elysee, in the very heart of Paris, there are those iconic Golden Arches beckoning. So successfully that over the past five years McDonald’s sales have increased by 42 percent. Some 1.2 million or 2 percent of French population eat there everyday. More than anywhere else in Europe.
Must be those French Fries!
In spite of the recent interest in a book about why French women are so thin (Mireille Guilano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat) and what all of us could learn from them (each day smoke as many cigarettes as possible and have at least two glasses of Montrechet), it appears that obesity is a growing problem in France. Forty-two percent of the population is overweight. And since children are becoming obese at a faster rate than adults (increasing at 17 percent each year as compared with 7 percent for adults), it is projected that by the year 2020, the French will be as fat as we are in the United States.
What’s going on here? A number of things have been observed to explain this disturbing phenomenon: First of all, contrary to the perception that the French sit around for hours every evening smacking their lips over magnificently prepared dishes made from the freshest of ingredients, it appears that they have taken to gulping down their food. An average French person today spends just 38 minutes over dinner whereas 25 years ago they lingered for 88 minutes.
Then, it’s the fault of women—in the past, it is claimed, a meal in France was such a ritual that eating between meals was considered to be a family misdemeanor. But now, since so many mothers need to work outside the home and thus have less time than in the past to shop at the local markets and select special things for the dinners they would laboriously prepare, they are blamed for irresponsibly setting their kids up in front of the TV and shoving unhealthy food at them.
But then of course there is the real reason the French have an obesity problem, and who else is there to blame than us? Because of how we have so debased the culinary habits of the West, the French have been seduced into a sedentary life of between-meal snacking and binging on fast foods. Right there on the Champs Elysee, in the very heart of Paris, there are those iconic Golden Arches beckoning. So successfully that over the past five years McDonald’s sales have increased by 42 percent. Some 1.2 million or 2 percent of French population eat there everyday. More than anywhere else in Europe.
Must be those French Fries!
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:06 AM
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