French Women don't Get Fat: The Book
I need my sisters to back me up on this. This means you Stacey.
This actually started as something I read on another blog and commented on, then decided it justified an entry on mine. Thus not my idea initially, but my rant. Will link out to other blog if other blog's author sees fit.
This book is a disturbing to me as a feminist. It is another vain attempt by the corporate man to strike fear into the hearts of American housewives by making us think that we are somehow deficient because we don't treat food the same way French women do. French women, according to the book, give in to the simple pleasures sensibly and without excess. For example on Amazon, the reviewer gives an example of how French Lady eats a croissant for breakfast, then has vegetables for lunch and passes on the bread at dinner. In other words, she let herself have a treat, and then held herself to draconian diet levels for the rest of the day, because God knows she doesn't deserve a chocolate croissant.
Not only is this a disturbing message to be sent to American women (you get one bonbon and then it's salad city, baby), it is also wrong.
The truth is French women don't get fat because they don't eat, period. The myth about the "simple pleasure" is either a) a way to tweak the starvation diet for an American audience or b) a way to make us feel bad when we eat an entire box of Girl Scout Cookies.
The types of eating disorders we are warned about in high school (ex-lax, throwing up, eating every other day) are COMMONPLACE here. Yes, you statisticians ask where my proof is? My proof is that I haven't met one female raised in France, having lived there for five years that I knew well enough to spend time with her during meals that didn't do one of the following: a)eat every other day b)forget meals c)susbsist on cigarettes c)starve herself until she passed out d)made herself throw up e)took laxatives. Do the French insist on sports (like the Swiss do) as a means of weight and stress control? NO. Because sporty women have big muscles and thus cannot fit into size 0. Perhaps I am surrounded by crazy people, I don't know, but the prevailing culture in this country is MORE unhealthy than it is in th US. French girls are sent the message as soon as junior high that if you're any bigger than a size four, don't bother. Serious social pressure. I'm not even talking about getting a man, because French men aren't worth it anyway. At least American women can graduate from high school and get jobs when they're a little chunky. At least American women are told that throwing up after meals is not ok. At least American women don't fall for those cheesy advertisements on tv about the butterfly muscle twitcher things. Seriously though, the reality is that I would rather be a 220 pound housewife and be saving my teeth, not suffering from vitamin deficiencies, not passing out instead of taking care of my child, than a "sensible" French woman. Also, life is too short to pass up on chocolate croissants. Sometimes I buy two. Even if they are 600 calories each.
It just makes me mad, I guess. I'm a size twelve, yet I a)can run, swim etc. b)was reasonably happy with my body until I started haning out with French people c)am really freakin strong and can lift my full suitcases over my head when the non-gallant French men refuse to help me, yet I keep getting told by my French friends that I need to "eat just salad" and "eat once a day" and lay off the croissants. Being from New Orleans, I am less worried about being fat than I am about not being able to perform tasks, like passing out in front of a three year old when trying to make him lunch.
This actually started as something I read on another blog and commented on, then decided it justified an entry on mine. Thus not my idea initially, but my rant. Will link out to other blog if other blog's author sees fit.
This book is a disturbing to me as a feminist. It is another vain attempt by the corporate man to strike fear into the hearts of American housewives by making us think that we are somehow deficient because we don't treat food the same way French women do. French women, according to the book, give in to the simple pleasures sensibly and without excess. For example on Amazon, the reviewer gives an example of how French Lady eats a croissant for breakfast, then has vegetables for lunch and passes on the bread at dinner. In other words, she let herself have a treat, and then held herself to draconian diet levels for the rest of the day, because God knows she doesn't deserve a chocolate croissant.
Not only is this a disturbing message to be sent to American women (you get one bonbon and then it's salad city, baby), it is also wrong.
The truth is French women don't get fat because they don't eat, period. The myth about the "simple pleasure" is either a) a way to tweak the starvation diet for an American audience or b) a way to make us feel bad when we eat an entire box of Girl Scout Cookies.
The types of eating disorders we are warned about in high school (ex-lax, throwing up, eating every other day) are COMMONPLACE here. Yes, you statisticians ask where my proof is? My proof is that I haven't met one female raised in France, having lived there for five years that I knew well enough to spend time with her during meals that didn't do one of the following: a)eat every other day b)forget meals c)susbsist on cigarettes c)starve herself until she passed out d)made herself throw up e)took laxatives. Do the French insist on sports (like the Swiss do) as a means of weight and stress control? NO. Because sporty women have big muscles and thus cannot fit into size 0. Perhaps I am surrounded by crazy people, I don't know, but the prevailing culture in this country is MORE unhealthy than it is in th US. French girls are sent the message as soon as junior high that if you're any bigger than a size four, don't bother. Serious social pressure. I'm not even talking about getting a man, because French men aren't worth it anyway. At least American women can graduate from high school and get jobs when they're a little chunky. At least American women are told that throwing up after meals is not ok. At least American women don't fall for those cheesy advertisements on tv about the butterfly muscle twitcher things. Seriously though, the reality is that I would rather be a 220 pound housewife and be saving my teeth, not suffering from vitamin deficiencies, not passing out instead of taking care of my child, than a "sensible" French woman. Also, life is too short to pass up on chocolate croissants. Sometimes I buy two. Even if they are 600 calories each.
It just makes me mad, I guess. I'm a size twelve, yet I a)can run, swim etc. b)was reasonably happy with my body until I started haning out with French people c)am really freakin strong and can lift my full suitcases over my head when the non-gallant French men refuse to help me, yet I keep getting told by my French friends that I need to "eat just salad" and "eat once a day" and lay off the croissants. Being from New Orleans, I am less worried about being fat than I am about not being able to perform tasks, like passing out in front of a three year old when trying to make him lunch.
posted by The DP at
11:39 AM
