Qualms

I love that the woman profiled in that article about how French women are in fact capable of getting fat, or at least of worrying that they might, is named "Bignon."

While we're on the interminable topic, because this is on the well-trodden WWPD beat, or because a trip through the artificial-butter-scented food court that is Penn Station served as a reminder of why Americans are, why aren't the French (or Parisians, or Europeans) fat? In a word: qualms. Or lack thereof. They have qualms about eating the "wrong" foods at the "wrong" times (explain me this, Europeans: a chocolate croissant can be breakfast, but a large-ish chocolate-chip cookie that's nutritionally identical cannot? and is eating lunch at 11:45 or 2:30 such a disaster?), but not so many qualms about shaming the overweight, or the consumption of food in manners conducive to weight gain.

We Americans more inclined to dance around others' weight and eating habits. If someone's 500 pounds from eating that much kale and quinoa, we can point to health at any size, to the possibility, however remote, that it's mostly muscle. If it's from Cheetos, then saying anything means you're an elitist (says the liberal) or a nanny and a nag (says the Ron Swanson conservative).

This dance, in extreme cases, is dangerous, but in just-overweight ones is probably for the best. A culture that strictly penalizes five-pound weight gain on a still-thin person, where you risk being fat-shamed even if you're underweight but picked an unflattering style of dress that day, can get oppressive oppressive and is not necessarily conducive to health. Fewer obese people, but more nutty, neurotic dieters struggling to stay below a healthy weight, often resorting to not-so-healthy measures.

Is fat-shaming the price we're willing to pay for a slimmer populace? Probably not, and shouldn't be, but alas, that is much of what makes certain Parisiennes look the way they do. I get that this isn't as aesthetically pleasing a reason as, 'they eat all their food from local-seasonal farmers markets' or, 'they smoke magical cigarettes that don't merely keep off five or ten pounds but make the difference between need-crane-to-emerge-from-home and runway model, keep your skin smooth, and actually make you live longer, into a ripe old age into which you'll carry on multiple affairs with married Socialist politicians.' Those scenarios appeal to us 'mericans, but rampant and largely preemptive fat-shaming is much closer to the truth. The French/Parisians/Europeans/ferners-who-are-of-course-a-monolith are not effortlessly thin. They just don't have the luxury of being anything but.

Thus why, as Susan Dominus points out, a country of skinny people might well be on the market for diet advice, even if the suggested plan involves voluntarily subjecting one's self to airplane food at home, in France. (Can these women please send me the Camembert and baguettes they no longer have use for?)

But the policing not of weight itself, but of eating that diverges from a rigid schedule, is a relatively nonjudgemental way of making obesity less likely, one that might even catch on in the U.S. Although how nutritionally-arbitrary-yet-effective "food rules" might work in a heterogeneous society remains to be seen. It's hard to artificially create a society in which the mid-morning snack is unheard-of. It's not just that we're committed to our "right" to eat the garbage of our choosing, without legal interference or informal commentary (concern-trolling!), but also that you basically need to have been raised believing that certain times are not food times, that desserts are not breakfast foods.

And this isn't the same as the American thing, where your parents might have said, for example, no ice cream for breakfast. It's a much deeper system, one that feels natural, not punitive, to those who grew up with it. They don't feel they're denying themselves a slice of chocolate cake at 10:30 in the morning, and they appreciate the piece they have at the accepted, later hour because cake is an only-at-certain-times thing. Can qualms be acquired? Maybe somewhat, but despite ample exposure to the qualms approach, I remain convinced that absolutely every cake or pastry can - in a sensible portion, assuming this isn't what you do every day - be the morning meal.