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!🤭

When in France I notice it is rare to see fat young women. Whereas many middle aged women tend to be overweight

I'm an old gimmer. 64. I'm slooooowly losing weight by intermittent fasting, bit of exercise (get fit with rick, joint friendly and easy to fit in) and 800 cals a day Monday- Friday. I have a very veg loaded diet, which is expensive but easy here because the produce is brilliant. Maybe I should take up smoking!!!!

Noooo, don’t do that! 800 cals sounds a bit tough for me, but all the veg sounds good. Years and years ago I spent some time in the South of France, I’ll never forget those markets 😊

It's quite sad how being over weight is so socially acceptable in the UK.

About 20 years ago I moved to Europe and moved around France/ Germany /Eastern Europe quite a bit. I lost weight almost immediately . So many reasons and lifestyle differences that contributed :
*riding a bike everywhere, because cities were designed for cyclists.
*a different structure to the day… eg when school/ work finished, everything didn’t shut down, so no temptation to slump on the sofa by 7pm. We could visit shops, go for family meals until late , again, cities set up for this rather than turning into to adult/binge drinking zones after 8pm.
*cheap accessible leisure facilities and maintained outdoor pools. Weather contributes to this too of course.
*this is 20 years ago, so options for take away/ fast food were limited. Think small bakeries (and portions)rather than Starbucks.
*medical systems that meant you’d see a doctor often and quickly for any issues, and usually you’d be told with brutal honesty if you were becoming overweight. This is especially true in pregnancy I found, weight is monitored VERY carefully.
*daily , cheap markets for fresh produce
*seasonal eating
*judgement! Your neighbour will tell you you’ve got fat lately 🙈
*clothes. It’s quite depressing being a size 12 and being too big for everything in most stores , but that was the situation.
There are loads more reasons, but these were the main ones for me.
That said when I went back to one country recently there were fast food/ costa type places everywhere and lots of bigger people, particularly young people.

That’s interesting to read. What a shame that the culture has changed since though. The fast food industry coupled with processed food and lack of time and cooking skills is mainly to blame along with supermarkets I feel.

My ex BF was French so spent a lot of time there. I thought that eating habits were totally different. Bigger meals - eg a hot meal at lunch. Hardly any snacking between meals. Much more sitting down to eat, less eating on the go. Good quality and cheaper fresh ingredients.

French women are thinner overall but the % of overweight people is increasing there too.

There is a higher pressure to be thin than in the U.K. And finding clothes over a size 16 is still hard which puts pressure too.

YY to all the creams for cellulite about 20 years ago. Plenty of talk about the right diet/books etc…. (The Régime Montignac)
My two of my friends are getting annoyed at having put weight on (both over 50yo) because they don’t fit in a size 40 (size 12 here) anymore.

There's definite pressure to be slim, but it really is dying out now a little in my circle of late 20s early 30s in the South. Half my female friends have relaxed and don't seem to care that they're not as small as they used to be (me included) and the other half are still chain smoking/barely eating and will comment if someone has put on a few kg. I'm hopeful it'll keep changing until we're all a little less obsessed with it all. In school, it was all about being skinny and having expensive clothes, although that was in a private school so I can't say for sure it was like that everywhere, of course.

And fast food places are getting more common! When I moved here there was only 1 Mcdonalds, that was it. We literally celebrated when we got a KFC (it was crap though, UK one is better) and now there seem to be strange "Taco" places everywhere which are a bit sad, and one Burger King which might be shutting down soon. No Starbucks, nearest one is in Toulouse and my large city has only just started stocking "to go" coffee cups in bakeries, but they don't seem to be used very often. Overall I think it's fairly balanced for now and hope it stays this way.

Oh and mostly we're all quite self critical, but not necessarily in a bad way. It's very common for someone to notice if they've put on 2kg and feel the need to be strict for a couple of weeks to get it back down to normal (and be quite vocal about it), before it gets out of hand and becomes too difficult. I think that's quite good (as long as done healthily) as it does prevent you from the big fluctuations or putting on 10kg without noticing (as I have done in the past!). In the UK I think weight is so taboo that it's easy for a lot of weight to be gained or lost without anyone daring to say anything, which isn't healthy either.

You are absolutely right about it not being mentioned in the UK (putting on weight, that is)@MademoiselleFrenglish . Definitely happened to me and, in fact, I think, some ‘friends’ quite liked that I had put on so much weight. One kept telling me I’d lost weight! I was fully aware from the scales I’d put on weight, but it wasn’t till I’d seen myself on a video of a family gathering that the penny truly dropped. Could have done with some French honesty before that moment of horror!

I think nowadays, in France, it’s more that people are vocal about having out 2kg on and needing to be careful rather than others mentioning it.

In the U.K., I’ve had people telling me I’ve lost weight when I actually gave put some on. I’ve always thought it’s because people notice a slight change in shape but don’t attribute it to the right cause.
Or is it that you’re supposed to read between the lines?? Sometimes, I still can’t tell (I’m French btw)

I always notice with interest how people dress, look and eat when I travel. When in the UK and Germany the number of obese people is much higher than for instance in Central Europe or Scandinavia, also in the UK it’s across all age groups, while at home I rarely see fat children, in my son’s school (a village school with approximately 150 kids) there are two overweight/obese kids who also have obese parents.

I’m in Sweden and from what I can see there’s a growing number of young fat adults, especially young mothers. I live in the countryside and it’s usually thin elderly, more overweight people of both sexes in the 60 something group, thin middle aged people who are either sport-obsessed or have physical jobs (farmers) and young families who are either thin and sporty or obese with no healthy eating habits. It’s a tight knit community so we basically look into each other’s plates 😅

I think its the same the world over TBH. The more sedentary a populations gets and the more processed foods they eat the fatter they get!
The people who seem to be the healthiest weights (and have the healthiest relationships to food) are those cooking from scratch, eating fresh ingredients and always active and doing something. And mostly they dont even consider their weight or health because they have never had to.......lucky bas*ards!!

Can I ask, how did you find someone? Were they a physio?

Tbh it was quite lucky. I tried 4 different people from yoga instructors to physios before I happened upon her.

She was an old school Pilates reformer instructor. It’s quite a trend now so if you’re looking try to find someone who has been practicing for a very long time.

She had been practicing for 30 years and started after it transformed her body post partum. So seemed a good fit. Turns out she had worked on some of the top athletes in the country. She has lived all over the world and people would fly out to her for 6 week resets. An incredibly talented woman.

I have since sent about 6 people her way and she has fixed everything from sciatic pain/ lower back problems, fallen arches and dodgy gait to mild scoliosis. Even the yoga instructor I tried before could see the difference in my strength and body and she went along. She decided to nickname her the human X-ray machine 🤣 Honestly if you could clone her she would fix half the country of ailments.

Goodluck. You will find someone if you keep looking and you should see results very quickly so don’t stick with someone if it isn’t working.

Tbh it was quite lucky. I tried 4 different people from yoga instructors to physios before I happened upon her.

She was an old school Pilates reformer instructor. It’s quite a trend now so if you’re looking try to find someone who has been practicing for a very long time.

She had been practicing for 30 years and started after it transformed her body post partum. So seemed a good fit. Turns out she had worked on some of the top athletes in the country. She has lived all over the world and people would fly out to her for 6 week resets. An incredibly talented woman.

I have since sent about 6 people her way and she has fixed everything from sciatic pain/ lower back problems, fallen arches and dodgy gait to mild scoliosis. Even the yoga instructor I tried before could see the difference in my strength and body and she went along. She decided to nickname her the human X-ray machine 🤣 Honestly if you could clone her she would fix half the country of ailments.

Goodluck. You will find someone if you keep looking and you should see results very quickly so don’t stick with someone if it isn’t working.

Wow! Where is she based? She sounds amazing!

@HelpIneedaworktop thank you so much!

I used to do reformer pilates years and years ago when I lived in London and loved it - sadly not available where I live now.

Genes count for a lot. I'm very tall, and when I lived in Paris I towered over the women there. And yes by and large they were petite. I remember a foreign student (I think from Pakistan) saying when she moved to Paris she realised everyone was slimmer so she lost a stone. Certainly I walked a lot more there.