Brigitte Bardot. Juliette Binoche. Anna Karina. What is it about French actresses that makes them so attractive? Well the accent certainly helps – it’s hard not to be drawn to someone who sounds like they’re reciting poetry even when they’re ordering an egg sandwich.
But of course they also tend to be gorgeous, leggy, toned and slim.
Nothing exclusively gallic about that, obviously – those traits tend to cluster in movie stars whatever their birthplace. But there’s also a common belief that, despite a predilection for cheese, steak frites, and pain au chocolat, regular French women don’t get fat.
Why should this be so? One popular theory is that the French way of eating means they only eat small amounts of these fatty foods.
For example, traditionally, French people take a long lunch, and food is savored rather than bolted. Researchers have known for a long time that eating slowly is associated with less intake and lower weight, and a recent experiment showed this is probably because it gives your gut more time to send your brain chemical messages telling you to put down the pâté.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, French gourmet classics may also encourage sensible portion sizes. For example, camembert and entrecôte are high in protein and fat, and both of these have been shown to make people feel fuller than an equal number of calories from carbohydrate.
Eating well-prepared, delicious foods could also give foodies a bigger reward hit than sugary junk, with the result of making them feel happier and stop stuffing themselves sooner.
Or maybe it’s because French women have different attitudes.
According to best-selling author Mirielle Guiliano, they don’t openly obsess about weight and shape, and generally eat for pleasure rather than health or weight control.
But along with this heightened appreciation of the joy of eating, there does also seem to be an implicit acceptance that being slim is desirable, and it’s much harder to find French support for the implicit American attitude that controlling intake is always painful, and the more laudable notion that everyone should have high body-esteem regardless of their size.
French women may also pass slender attitudes on to their children – in a cross-cultural survey US parents were more likely to give their children food to reward or comfort them, even when they were not hungry, whereas French parents were actually more likely to monitor their child’s food intake to keep an eye on their weight.
So should we all hot-tail it to France if we want to stay slim and healthy?
In terms of heart health the answer might be yes. The so-called French paradox (the mystery of why fatty French diets don’t cause heart attacks) continues to perplex experts, with France resolutely boasting among the lowest cardiovascular disease deaths in the world. Some of that’s down to the French health system, of course, but lifestyle definitely contributes.
Weight-wise, however, the answer might not be as clear. Although America is still the fattest nation, with about 32% of adults obese and an additional 34% overweight, the latest tallies suggest that the onslaught of le Big Mac has meant that France is also tubbier than it used to be: currently around 13% of French adults are obese and nearly 31% overweight.
And although heart disease is low, high rates of smoking and alcohol consumption paired with low intake of fruits and vegetables make the cancer statistics less happy reading.
(In fact, since spoilsport researchers showed grape juice protects the heart equally as well as red wine we can’t even use the heart disease stats as an excuse to drink copious amounts of Bordeaux).
So perhaps the best plan of action is to borrow from the French lifestyle the aspects we like the most, and hope we end up as lithe, confident and sophisticated as the stereotypical French female that we hold in our collective imagination.
Personally, I’ll be shunning the elaborate beauty regime and sickly-sweet patisserie in favor of long vacations, free health care and a nice stinky slice of brie.
Bon appétit!
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