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Mar 4

The Myth That French Women Dont Get Fat Is Both Wrong and Harmful – Self

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I was six years old the first time I used fat as an insult. Though I now know itisnt a bad word, I didnt at the time. It didnt take me long growing up in France to internalize the countrys rampantly fatphobic culture and weaponize it against a peer. By the time I was a teen, I had embarked on my first diet, kicking off a decade of disordered relationships with both my own body and the food on my plate.

Experiences like minearent unique to Francefar from itbut the very French insistence on thinness is so insidious that it has somehow gotten exporteden masse to other Western countriesincluding to the US and the UK, the two places Ive lived in since I left France at 17. In these places, womens lifestyle magazines have long purported to teach their readers how to be more like this fabled French woman, the one whoas writer Mireille Guiliano so unhelpfully put it in the title of her 2004 best-selling book,French Women Dont Get Fatis allegedly forever thin.

During my university and postgraduation years in Los Angeles and London, American and British women were increasingly being told they should be more like this impossibly, effortlessly thin person (yet another sneaky iteration of garden-varietydiet culture). As I absorbed these messages, the very same lessons Id learned about my own body growing up were reinforcednamely, that it wasnt good enough as it was.

Though I still have days when my own anti-fat bias rears its ugly head, I consider myselfrecovered from disordered eating now, close to 11 years after I first left my home country. Heres what Ive learned along the way about thewarped messages I was sold about womens bodies, including the ridiculous and deeply harmful idea that we should all try to look like this mythical French girl.

The idea that French women dont get fat is, if not entirely made up, at least woefully distorted. The truth is, lots of French women arent thin. Plenty of themas was the case for mealso develop problems with disordered eating as they try to live up to a harmful ideal. Cline Casse, the founder ofStopTCA, a French therapy platform that connects people dealing with disordered eating habits to nutritionists and therapists, is painfully aware of this reality, citing the example of a 10-year-old girl she worked with who asked her if it was normal to make herself vomit. Casse tells SELF that, due in part to a culture that promotes thinness ahead of health, shes seeing eating disorders begin increasingly early among middle and high school kids. This observation aligns with research showing a significant spike in eating disorder treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic: A 2022 study in theJournal of Clinical Medicine found that from March 2020 to November 2021, anorexia-related hospitalizations in France increased by 46% for girls aged 10 to 19 and by 7% for women aged 20 to 29.

This image of the thin French woman concerns a small portion of individuals, Casse says, who partially blames shows likeEmily in Parisfor perpetuating the myth of the monolithic French woman, when French women exist in all kinds of body types. She also points out that genetic and socioeconomic factors largely influence a persons body size, and that the archetypal French woman we picture is almost always wealthy and whitewhich, again, is hardly representative of all women in France.

When magazines and influencers (and books like Guilianos) attempt to teach us how to eat and live like a French girl, the message is typically that she doesnt have totryto be thin. She just is. The ideal of the effortlessly thin French girl presupposes that diet culture doesnt exist in France, while my and most of my French friends experiences completely invalidates that theory.

Casse confirms that diet culture is unfortunately still alive and well in France. When I listen [to conversations] in a public space, on the radio, or on French TV shows, I hear things like, Fasting helped me lose weight, you should try it, I mustnt gain weight, otherwise my partner wont be happy, or, I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and avoid starchy food as much as possible to stay slim, she says.

Although Casse says thatbody acceptance is slowly gaining traction in France, she caveats that the culture ofanti-fatness prevails. Fat people are still called names and seen (and portrayed in media) as lazy or lacking willpower, while thin people are still praised and glamorized. The effortlessness we associate with the French Girl archetype isnt based in reality, yet were still being sold her perceived diet and lifestyle habits as the pinnacle of womanhood.

The French woman Guiliano writes about represents a specific type of personone who is Parisian, wealthy, and usually white. Her thinness is to an extent a byproduct of these factors (as, again, socioeconomic circumstances such asincome and education levels can influence a persons weight), coupled with genetics. Shes also typically assumed to be healthy simply because shes thin, even though we know that health and body size areby no means the same thing. Its also worth noting thatone in three French people smoked tobacco products as of 2020, a habit that is often associated with the French Girl archetype and one that is unfortunately frequently used as a weight-loss methoddespite the fact that smoking is decidedly bad for your health.

Nearly 20 years after Guillano publishedFrench Women Dont Get Fat, people are still conflating French womens perceived thinness with fitness and health. A new generation ofinfluencers andblogs are teaching readers to eat like French women in order to stay healthyeven though the advice they peddle is often geared at readers looking to lose weight rather than to take care of their health holistically. And of course, mainstream magazines andonline publications arestill at it too, though mercifully much less so than they might have been a few years ago. But what these content creators are ignoring is that you cant tell how healthy someone is from their body size.

Weight-science research shows that about 75% of our body weight ispredetermined by genetics; by contrast, some studies suggest that height is around80% genetically determined, London-based registered nutritionistLaura Thomas, PhD, tells SELF. We also know that the vast majority of dieting attempts end inweight regain, and a large portion of peoplewill go on to regain more weight than what they lost on the diet, adds Dr. Thomas. In effect, the scientific reality is that no matter how much you try to eat like a French girl, you are unlikely to drastically alter your body type over the long termnor would restricting your food in this way determine whether you are any healthier overall.

The deeply entrenched fatphobia in France, coupled with the false ideal of the effortlessly thin (and therefore healthy) French woman, destroyed my relationship with food and my body as I know it has for thousands of others. This essay is my call to media outlets, content creators, and anyone else who will listen to consider the consequences of selling such an exclusionary ideal to vulnerable girls and women, and to lay it to rest once and for all. Its long past time.

If youre struggling with an eating disorder, you can find support and resources from theNational Eating Disorder Association(NEDA). If you are in a crisis, you can text NEDA to 741741 to be connected with a trained volunteer atCrisis Text Linefor immediate support.

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The Myth That French Women Dont Get Fat Is Both Wrong and Harmful - Self

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