Are French women really that thin?

[ownedbymydog]

Inspired by a thread running on AIBU at the moment on the importance (or not) of calorie counting I went down a bit of an internet dieting rabbit hole (an occasional hobby) and kept coming across people telling me how thin French women are. I immediately bought two books, ‘French women don’t get fat’ (which seems a bit dated) and ‘Parisian Slim’ (which was too short) and I have two questions for you.

1. Honestly, ARE French women really that thin? (Sorry if this has been done before).
2. Can anyone recommend any other books on this topic as I’ve got a week off, the rain is obviously never going to end, and I need to read something silly…but which may inspire me to eat less chips healthily!🤭

Drinking wine on its own - not as an accompaniment to a meal - isvery British but less French, and quite calorific.

I live in Brittany. By and large, French women of my age are slimmer and better groomed than me. It's important to them (and not to me, I might add), and I would say culturally, French women like to have clothes of good quality which look good for longer than my primark t shirts! Not everyone fits that stereotype, but there are plenty who do.

@2phat2phaf do you mind me asking your age group? At 48, I’m finding it so hard to lose weight and it just seems, from what I’ve read, it’s not the same for French women. And I am just making excuses!

So interesting to hear from all the people living, or have lived, in France.

Ironically looking after one's skin and protecting it from the sun is not standard in France. So you see these affluent, thin well dressed people with skin like a old leather backpack

I find it easier to stay slim since moving to France.

I would say it's partly a culture thing and partly a class thing.

I am convinced that UPFs make it much harder to shift weight, regardless of the number of calories consumed. The average French person eats less UPF than the average British person, particularly bread, which they will buy fresh from the bakery rather than from the supermarket. But fresh food is obviously more expensive, especially if you are also buying good quality meat and vegetables. That's why I think it's also a class thing; poor people are more likely to buy shitty food from the supermarket, which is the same everywhere.

The other things I think make a difference are snacks and alcohol. There isn't much of a snacking culture in France. And if you go to the corner shop you'll see that there are maybe 6 or 7 chocolate bars to choose from (Twix, Kit Kat, Bounty, Picnic, Kinder Bueno...that's about it in most places) and you don't usually see single serving packets of crisps. This is because buying a chocolate bar or a packet of crisps and eating it outside of a mealtime isn't something most people really do very often in France. Most adults only eat crisps when they meet their friends for an apéro and will put some crisps and nuts in bowls on the table to share.

The French obviously like their wine but the glasses are much much smaller, like 125ml, and they drink more slowly. 250ml is a small carafe of wine to share between two people in a restaurant, not a large glass like it is in the UK.

So, @ownedbymydog, if you want to try the French diet, try this.

• Avoid UPFs, especially in bread. Buy fresh bread from a proper bakery or make it yourself and freeze it in slices.
• Eat a proper sit down meal at lunchtime. Have some protein, carbs and vegetables for your main course and some yoghurt or fruit for dessert. No sad sandwiches at your desk. A salad bowl if you really must eat on the go.
• Don't eat anything else until dinner time. If you've eaten properly at lunchtime your dinner should be a bit lighter.
• Don't eat crisps or chocolate or drink more than one glass of wine unless you are meeting friends. Get smaller wine glasses and drink more slowly. Buy better wine and drink less of it.

Give it a go and let us know whether you lose any weight!

This. And sandwiches are made from better quality bread with less ingredients and without sugar added. The French also take more time eating too rather than shovelling food and aren't fed quite so much processed food as we are at an early age. My mother is French and I used to be so jealous of the highly processed snacks my friends were allowed but I wasn't (in the UK).

I agree, out of all my friends growing up I was one of the few who wore sun cream. Even now at 30 it's really only myself and my English friends who get the sun cream out and the french don't need it as they have "french skin", apparently. Between that and the smoking (down South loads of people smoke), French skin isn't too great.

Thank you @MissScarletInTheBallroom I am definitely going to try! I’m very conditioned to snacking, that’ll have to be the first thing to go.

Oh 100%, I really had to unlearn the British way of making a sandwich. It's much more common here to have a bit of baguette with a small amount of butter, a slice of ham and a few pickles. The plus side is that it's a real big treat for me when I go back to the UK and have the Christmas dinner sandwiches, the cheese and onion, egg and cress, cheese and pickle etc.

The lunch break in school when I was in primary was 2 and a half hours, in secondary it was 2 hours and then it depended on your schedule but it was usually 1 and a half to 2 hours. Lunch in the "cantine" was 3 courses every single day.

I remember once at a French motorway services (Aire?) seeing a French family unpack their picnic lunch, complete with table cloth for the picnic table, and a bottle of red wine. Meanwhile we had sandwiches wrapped in foil, which we ate as quickly as possible really because Dad was keen to get back on the road. 😂

Hahahah that's amazing. I saw that really recently too, it was a couple who had flasks of coffee, a bottle of wine, paté, baguette, cheese, cherry tomatoes, mustard.. the lot! We had forgotten our lunch so had to get the overpriced sandwiches from the shop. We were extremely jealous of them 😂Clearly it's still very common!

My French friend fits the slim and trim stereotype. It is achieved by much sacrifice and a strong view that they worst thing she could be in life is fat. So much so she used to water down her daughter's milk as she didn't want her to be fat or learn bad habits young... the rest of our friendship group were super shocked but she just shrugged it off commenting that English babies were all fat.

But generally I've found that you get a full mix of body types in France but I do admire their, and other European countries, focus on feeding children well at school. I wish Chartwells took a leaf out of their books.

😂 oh god my family do this! Surprisingly it’s not the French half though 😂

They're a smart bunch then, it's way nicer than the sad motorway sandwiches that are always soggy! 😂

I grew up in a dreary working class town in northern France and the women were no different from British women. All shapes and sizes and yes, some very overweight. I think weight is more of a class than a nationality issue.

You could try reading Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat (yes real title) or (slightly off topic but still relevant) French Kids Don't Throw Food. I'm a sucker for that type of book 😆

I lived in Paris years ago and then moved to London and there was definitely a stark difference is size, both for women and men. Now I'm in Stockholm and again it's very noticable that people in the UK consist of much larger people.

If we are talking about obesity overall the rates from last year were that in France 17% were obese, in the UK 25,9%, in Sweden 16% were obese.

I work with a lot of French people and there is definitely a social pressure to be thin. If you put on weight as a French woman your friends and relatives will comment on it. A lot of French women watch everything they eat because of this.

Even when they are pregnant they are weighed regularly and warned by a HCP if they are putting on too much weight.

Thanks @DaveWatts I haven’t heard of either of those. Could you link them? Is that allowed? I’ve been reading other threads and I probably should have linked the two books I mentioned…
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Parisian-Slim-menopausal-weight-pretending-ebook/dp/B0CW1GFN6D/
and https://www.amazon.co.uk/French-Women-Dont-Get-Fat/dp/0099481324/

Please remove post, mnhq, if it’s not allowed 😂

@RoachFish , those figures are a bit scary. They really are.
And @Almostwelsh , that’s interesting, so many people have mentioned that. I feel like it’s the complete opposite here, grumpy looks if you refuse a bit of cake…

I would say French women, from my experience (my parents live there so we go 3 times a year...), are much slimmer than Brits.
They tend to eat real food and be outdoors more.

@ownedbymydog here you go:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Japanese-Women-Dont-Get-Old/dp/0091907101

https://www.amazon.co.uk/French-Children-Dont-Throw-Food/dp/0552779172

Fantastic, thank you! Any more suggestions for my reading/ watching list very welcome. I doubt I’ll be doing much else in this bloody awful weather.

Not read the thread but according to this https://data.worldobesity.org/rankings/?age=a&sex=f definitely less overweight than the UK. Approx 28% adult females in UK are considered obese compared with just under 10% of adult females in France.

Being fat is definitely less socially acceptable in France.

I think that social pressure can be a helpful tool to avoid putting on weight in the first place - eg people in your life will notice, comment, and encourage you to avoid it. When pregnant, health professionals make a big effort to stop women putting on any unnecessary weight which may be difficult to lose after the birth.

I've encountered many French folk who think the Brits have filthy houses, eat junk, binge drink and are overweight.

French children don't throw food is a good read, and a mumsnet 'classic' (love it or hate it)