Dieting With a French Accent

It's not true that French women don't get fat, but Mireille Guiliano's best-selling diet book is fun and, who knows, may help some people lose a few pounds.

Recently, we came across a yellowing paperback copy of The Scarsdale Medical Diet (Bantam, 1979), by Dr. Herman Tarnower. It's an interesting artifact of dieting as it was practiced 25 to 30 years ago. Tarnower's 1,000-calorie-a-day diet was ardently anti-fat, cutting normal consumption by half. Today, of course, carbohydrates are the forbidden fruit of the diet world. And in nutrition circles, the stress is on separating "good" fats (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated) from "bad" ones (saturated and trans fats). Tarnower was also very strict, detailing exactly what should be eaten during the 14-day weight-loss period and brooking few substitutions.

The Diet du Jour
French Women Don't Get Fat (Knopf, 2004) was a big hit, but in some ways, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. Like the Scarsdale diet -- and every other weight-loss diet we can think of -- Guiliano has a program designed to induce you to eat fewer calories. Calorie restriction, however it's packaged, is followed by a looser plan that will supposedly keep off the pounds you've lost.

Other standard ingredients include a liberal sprinkling of recipes (Guiliano's are long on lemon) and ample servings of success stories for motivation. She recycles several hoary bits of dieting advice, telling readers to avoid junky snack food and fill up by drinking more water. Tarnower instructed people to eat slowly and "chew, chew, chew." Guiliano says much the same thing, though more politely, with the tip to "chew well, even if it seems theatrical at first."

The title of the book is misleading. The numbers started to creep up in the 1990s, and now almost one in 10 French women is obese. Moreover, cigarettes may explain some of the thinness. The numbers vary, but according to one World Health Organization tally, about 34 percent of French women smoke compared with 22 percent of American women.

Savor Our Fare
Still, the appeal of Guiliano's approach is undeniable. The Scarsdale and many other diets read as though they were written on a prescription pad. Guiliano, who runs a champagne import business, writes as a food and drink lover. Her main idea is that people -- particularly Americans -- would eat less and lose weight if they savored their food more. And, she believes, they'll savor food more if they pay more attention to it. That means shopping at smaller markets several times a week (instead of loading up at the supermarket or the warehouse store), eating only at the table sitting down, preparing your own meals, and truly noticing the first few bites instead of wolfing your food down.

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