Why are French women so slim?
In the past few years, there have been numerous books attempting to explain this perplexing – and enviable – mystery, ranging from Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secrets of Eating for Pleasure, and Josh Ferdinand’s The French Paradox. Combined, these books have sought to blame the Frenchwoman’s highly envied figure on everything from the cuisine, to their more relaxed approached to life and even to the greater amount of walking the French do. In other words, there’s a theory for every person you ask. Most likely, the true reason is a combination of all these reasons but whatever the truth, the phenomenon has a number of consequences for the visitor. The first involves the food. Any visitor to a French restaurant will probably notice the size of the portions which, compared to the gigantic American sized portions now becoming common everywhere else, are incredibly small. More than one amazed tourist has pointed to a tiny croissant as the reason why all the women in
