France, a nation of slender beauties or plump sluggards?

The question has sparked a weighty debate in the land that gave us foie gras and buttery croissants, where doctors are fighting an explosion in obesity cases while a U.S. bestseller claims “French women don’t get fat”.

French women indulge in rich cheeses, croissants and entrecotes and still stay slim, argues author Mireille Guiliano, because they walk a lot, prepare meals with fresh ingredients, enjoy every bite and stop when they have had enough.

A slim French gourmet living in New York, the head of champagne maker Veuve Clicquot’s U.S. arm seems to have resolved the paradox that France’s food-loving women are thinner than their diet-obsessed counterparts in the United States.

But French experts say although Guiliano is right in principle, her theory reflects reality less and less.

“French women don’t get fat yet,” says Jean-Marie Le Guen, a doctor and Socialist opposition deputy who has tabled a law in parliament to help in the fight against Obesity.

“France thought for a long time it was protected from Obesity. But in reality, the epidemic is now spreading at about the same rate as in the United States. The problem has just been delayed by 5, 10 years compared with over there.”

About 11 percent of French people are obese, well below some 30 percent of Americans, French experts showed in 2003 research. But obesity in France is growing at five percent a year.

And overweight people say they are given a particularly hard time in a country obsessed with good looks and the body beautiful, where women spend as much on facial skincare as their Spanish, German and British counterparts put together.

“People can be cruel,” said Anne-Sophie Joly, who once weighed 150 kg (330 pounds) and is president of CNAO, an umbrella organisation for French obesity lobby groups.

“When I was applying for a job in a supermarket, they asked me whether I could read,” said Joly, 34, who holds a degree in interior design.

“When I lost weight, men would all of a sudden gallantly open doors for me.”

CROISSANT ON THE GO

Le Guen says the French model of regular, healthy family meals described in Guiliano’s book is disappearing.

“There is more snacking and fewer meals. Food has become globalised, with a rise in new forms of industrialised foods. Products are becoming the same across the world,” he said.

A proper diet is more of a problem for people from poorer backgrounds, as healthier foods like meat and vegetables tend to be more expensive than chips and processed foods, he said.

Once despised, American fastfood chains have enjoyed growing success in France. McDonald’s serves a million customers a day in over 1,000 outlets in France.

Arnaud Basdevant, a Paris doctor who has worked with Obesity patients for 25 years, wants swift action. He says 12 percent of French children are obese, double the number of 15 years ago.

“The people coming to our service are getting younger and their obesity levels are becoming more extreme,” he said.

“One of the main challenges for France is not to adopt the ‘supersizing culture’ of the United States, where portions are becoming larger and larger,” he said.

OBESESSED WITH THINNESS

Le Guen’s draft law, tabled in March, would make it compulsory for school children to take at least 30 minutes of exercise a day and force manufacturers to list ingredients on their product’s packaging.

But obesity groups say more needs to be done.

“There’s no point putting the protein contents on a pack of biscuits,” said Joly, who shed 60 kg in two-and-a-half years. “People don’t know what it means. You might as well say the product contains uranium, no-one would notice,” she says. “You have to explain things in very simple terms.”

Basdevant said the food industry, the authorities, doctors and consumers had to work together to ensure families were better informed about their diet and not taken in by adverts.

But doctors also caution that France’s cult of beauty affects young people’s eating habits.

“You can’t fight Obesity in a country that is obsessed with extreme thinness,” said psychologist Michele Le Barzic of Paris’s Hotel Dieu hospital.

“As soon as people get just a little bit bigger, they diet. And that’s what’s messing up their eating habits and can cause weight gain,” she said, adding the French had become more round in past years and should just accept it.

The question is: When the French edition of Guiliano’s book comes out this autumn, will her compatriots embrace “French women don’t get fat” as a hymn to national “savoir vivre” or as a nostalgic look at the past.