French Women Don't Get Fat

I just read a book called "French Women Don't Get Fat", and I must say it was very insightful! It's no suprise French - and most European/Asian - women are not as fat as American women. They don't feel guilt over every bite of bread or chocolate or glass of wine they have. Their secret - or lack there of - is basically this: Small portions, high quality of food in small amounts versus low quality of food in large portions (Think 1 Godiva truffle versus 6 mini Snickers), SAVOR everything, and everything in moderation. They don't deprive themselves of anything... If they want bread before a meal, they have it - but only 1 slice, not 4 - and if they want dessert, they get it.. but in return get a lighter dinner and they usually share a dessert with other people. It's so simple and yet we Americans can't seem to grasp it. I'm definitely going to live by these philosophies from now on!

It's so true! I'm German, and when in Germany my eating habits tend to change very quickly.  All of my German friends are super-skinny, and they eat a lot of chocolate! They just eat good stuff, and have a little bit here and there; no pigging out.  Everyone is very active, too, without consciously "exercising."  They walk a lot, ride bicycles everywhere, and everyone does a sport of some kind. 

It should be so simple, but somehow the lifestyle here makes it easy to forget!

i had a roommate that was from bulgaria and she said the reason why americans are so fat is because here everything is sooo processed. she said they would get milk and it would last like a day and same with bread when she was living at home. now she says shes gained a tun of weight even tho she eats the same amount...its just all really crappy i guess.

I work at a bookstore, and this book and its sequel are the only "diet books" I ever feel OK recommending to people. The advice is very common-sense and empowering, and the author (I forget her name) is an extremely good writer.

Americans, sad to say, have no idea how or what to eat. We have to teach ourselves, and actively avoid the barrage of junk food and junk science that assaults us from every which way. This book is a good primer for doing just that. Besides, the recipes are good.

Yes, it's a GREAT concept! I try to do that -- savor my food and eat high quality. There's room for improvement though. :) I totally agree with the fact that our food here in America is way too processed! We should all try to stay away from that as much as we can.

I just put a hold on that book at my library. Thanks for bringing it up! :)

Actually I am still living in Europe I have lived in Czech and in Poland for a combined total of about a year and have traveled through most of Europe. I have to agree Germans and also Swiss are very active, they jog, bike and cross- country ski. However if you go to any other country in Europe you would be hard pressed to find a jogger. I know a few Americans and Germans that jog here in the Czech republic but that is it. I Never saw a jogger in Poland and I have been through most of it. I saw one here in Czech and I have been here for 6 months at least now, and outside of Prague.

Public transportation is more available though throughout Europe, this includes small towns, so people are less dependent on cars here. Even the very small towns have buses going to them. However in Poland and in Czech you may get on the bus but you don't always get a seat :) I have had to stand more than a couple times all the way to my destination, ususally a couple hours. That may burn a few more calories than driving huh? But it makes a difference, you can walk to places, and have to if ou don't have a car. Back home in the states I had no other route to get to town than a 4 lane highway, and the nearest city was 30 minutes away by car. There was no option to walk, I had to drive. Here I can take a bus and walk a little more.

I am not sure about eating habits, but I do know one thing for certain, Europeans really love smoking. It is much more accepted here than in America, and more people do it, especially young people. It has only been in the past few years that cigarettes even have warnings on the box here in Czech. I don't know if this affects weight but it is something that I am going to put out there.

Im Polish and I do live in Poland. Everyone here is very thin or normal slim. There are some people that do have bellies but its not that common and if it is its usually the older people.
I lived in the USA for 15 yrs and when I went back to Poland I was freaking jealous and amazed. I have to starve myself to  be thin while these girls eat a lot and stay that way. Yes you do walk more and its very pleasurable because everything is close so that might help them burn the calories as well.
Im not sure about the eating habits. In college I saw the girls eating cookies and cakes and doughnuts like no tomorrow and at restaurants the same thing so I dont know??
Im scared to try and eat normal becuase Im sure I will gain weight.
It has to be the american food that sucks I think.

It could be that American food is bad. I dont know.The czech girls and the Polish girls are super skinny. Both places they are skinny, I dont know how they do it either because czech food is almost all fried or smothered in a sauce. I go to a cafe and have a tea, no sugar, no cream, no nothing just tea. I look around and their are skinny skinny girls drinking hot chocolate and machiatos, smoking and eating cake. I know what you mean Polishmodel it drives me nuts too!

Did you know that, according to world wide statistics, the Italians have the less obesity and overweight than most countries?  It's because they don't eat like we do.  Pasta is just a course - they have it every day, but only a small portion.  Most of the Italian diet is fresh vegetables, fruits, dairy products and meats and the portions are much smaller.  Dessert isn't served at the end of the meal.  Sweets are eaten as snacks.

Interesting.

You might find this interesting

Obesity Statistics by Country

Active lifestyles, I think, are just as if not more important.  When I visited my grandmother's family in Italy, nobody could drive anything larger than a motorcycle because the streets were so narrow.  Everyone walked everywhere.  A mile or two was no big deal.  Up the hill?  Piece of cake!  Sweets weren't snacks, they were more fancy desserts for the visiting Americans.  Gelato, gianduia, bingoli, panatone, tiramisu . . . if Italians ate these things every day, even in small portions, they'd have an obesity problem too!  (I didn't gain anything in that month but I didn't lose anything either.)

And when I went on a spring break trip to London, I ate bread and butter for every breakfast, walked to half the places I wanted to see (took the subway if it was across the city) and I lost a pound in a week!

I heard some story, or read it somewhere that with more and more American TV and American fast food being introduced in France, the French are getting a little fatter.  Of course, it will take them a long time to catch up :)  But I think that Europeans will inturrupt this trend and make sure their good habits (eating well but reasonably and walking) stay around. 

When I lived in Spain, a long time ago, we walked every evening, all around the plaza mayor, window shopped, especially the pastry shops, and treated ourselves to something sweet.  But it was always a reasonable portion and I never gained a lb. 

mmmmmm Churros Y Chocolate!!

I agree with the walking for sure.  Growing up I lived in town and would always walk to the arcade or the ice cream place or to go bowling etc.  I walked sometimes 5 miles a day and being teenaged combined with being very active I couldn't gain weight I was very thin and not very healthy because my food choices sucked, but I was thin simply from being that active everyday. 

Now if I could only get in that much walking with my new healthy diet lol I'd be on top of the world :)

I read this a year or so ago and also found it very insightful. 

I think that Americans, as a general population, have very skewed ideas about healthy food, adequate activty, and portion sizes.  We are also a very "in a hurry" and instant gratification society.  We have taken the joy out of food, out of cooking, and made it a chore.  We drive more than we walk.  We watch tv rather than going outdoors.  We are stagnating and eating ourselves to death.  I, for one, am bucking the trend!

Reading this just makes me want to move to another country. I can't stand the United States sometimes.. for more than one reason. Definitely are a disturbing group of people.

One inspiration for me to control my eating is knowing that in Africa(& of course here as well) there are children dying from starvation, and there are children who dig for ants to eat. I have a picture of children doing that on my desktop as a reminded not to gorge, & not to waste.

So these people in European countries obviously just eat to live, while we eat here out of pleasure..

When I was 16 I was an exchange student in europe. We walked and biked everywhere. Breakfast was a thick piece of hearty whole grain bread with honey on it. Lunch was the biggest meal of the day, but we only had meat once or twice a week.  Lunch had several courses we lingered over - included a veggie soup to start, a hot dish usually based on potatoes, and a big salad with homemade dressing. Dinner was light: another thick slice of bread with a bit of cold cuts or cheese, and more salad. We also drank lots of wine, every day, but only after the sun went down.

We rarely ate dessert, usually just once a week on Sunday, and then often it was a homemade berry tart (we picked the berries ourselves). We would have an ice cream treat once in awhile, but it required us to bike over to the next town to have it. There was no snacking in between, although we did often stop at cafe and have a coffee and maybe split a small pastry.

The refrigerator was no bigger than a dorm fridge, and this was for a family of 6!! We went to the market each and every single day for fresh food, most of it was kept in the cold room, not the fridge. There were no pantries stocked with boxed, processed convenience foods. Everything was made from scratch.

This was quite a shock to me! Up until then, I had been a child of the 70s raised by American midwestern parents who believed in having red meat three times a day. Typical days food would include: eggs and bacon for breakfast, a hoagie with cold cuts and bag of chips for lunch, and steak and potato with a side of saddddd looking canned veggie on the side, or an iceburg salad drenched in bottled dressing. And always a huge bowl of ice cream after dinner.

I grew that summer so I didn't lose any lbs per se, but I grew nicely into my weight and all of what my mom called "baby fat" disappeared completely. I looked great, but more importantly, I FELT great! I felt sooo much better.

Even though it then took me another 15 years to get my act together, teach myself to cook, learn about nutrition and make the connection with my diet here vs in europe, and finally stop struggling with my weight, I think having this early experience - and then trying to duplicate it in my later life -  is why compared to my siblings I have been more successful keeping my weight down over the years and not becoming obese.

Unfortunately, I think the big differences in the American mentality and the European mentality are becoming smaller as time passes.

I was born and raised in Portugal, and another girl and I were the chubbiest of our class in primary school. Reality was, that we would probably still be considered normal here in the USA.

But after moving here, and visiting home about twice a year, I find it very alarming that the number of overweight people keep increasing.

The characteristics about the US people have mentioned, such as being in a rush, losing the joy in cooking, high availability of fast food/processed foods, high portions, etc. have started to cross over to European countries.

Claire that was a very interesting link; thanks for sharing.

I was surprised to see that the Mediterranean countries, often praised for their diets have rather high %'s. With the exception of Italy. What is more shocking is the huge difference between the USA's stats with the other countries. It's stats are actually +6% than the country rated 2nd, while 2nd and 3rd are separated for only 1%.

Edit: I just looked around more in the link, and in the correlations section, I was amazed to see the correlation between teenage pregnancy and obesity. Wow! o_O I never thought about that connection.

I think with the American obesity "epidemic" and subsequently this whole health craze that people are just starting to buy into, the Europeans will be spared fattening American food.  Since they see what is coming and what the result of eating it will be.

I've been to France and only North American tourists ate at the McDonalds' there.  The fast food chains were virtually empty, while the little corner stand that sold homemade baguette sandwiches had a lineup to the end of the block.   

I just returned home to the U.S. from living for a while in Palestine and I noticed a HUGE difference.

I think the problem with American society is that food is so easy to obtain. We have frozen TV dinners and stir-fry in a bag and dinner counters at the grocery store. When its so easy to have a dinner on the table, we don't appreciate the preparation of the food. Living in Palestine was a real wake-up call for me because I had to prepare all my own food, most of it from scratch (though I admit that I spend the first month living on pita and hummus). I think there's something about spending an hour or two on preparing dinner that just makes you appreciate it more. You're not mindlessly eating. You're conscious of what you're putting into your mouth and I think you value it more. Now that I'm back in the U.S., I've taken to baking my own bread, making homemade dips and spreads, and preparing veggie pies from scratch. My friends think I've lost my mind, but I actually LOVE it. (and I know they love eating my food!)

Hmm i dont agree because food is easy to obtain in europe too politica and look at them they are thin.

Just not to allow people to have the wrong idea...

There are a lot of not-skinny people in Europe. Claire's link shows that many countries in europe with over 10% obesity rate, and that does not take in consideration the many more people considered overweight.

Not every European is skinny. I know for a fact I was never one of the skinny people and I am European. I also knew many people growing up that were not skinny.