Frog Legs vs Peanut Butter:
Eating Behaviors France Vs USA

by Denise Quirk Baillot 
Speech delivered at the American Embassy in Paris

I. Introduction

Good afternoon, and thank you for having me here today to talk to you about French and American habits and attitudes about food.

My talk will last about 45 minutes and I’ll be happy to answer questions at the end.

Here is the general outline of the talk to give you an idea of what I’ll be covering.
I’ll start with a brief some background, give you the reasons why I became interested in studying such a topic, and quickly go over rates of obesity, Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa.
As my main points, I’ll start with a hopefully not too dry explanation of the study I’m presently conducting and talk about three previous studies which also looked at differences between the US and other European countries in terms of eating habits, eating disorders and attitudes about food and dieting.
I’ll point out some of the reasons that are believed to be behind the problems happening in the US, namely the mixed message communicated by the media and advertising.
Then I’ll go over just a couple of quick ideas I have for future studies on the same general topic and I’ll close with a discussion of the French Equilibre and some encouraging movements that are happening in the West which encourage a balanced outlook on food, dieting and lifestyle.

So. In order to give you a bit of an introduction to my topic, I’d like to start with a little vignette :

In 1989 or so, I still lived in California and was working as a counselor specializing in eating disorders. Well, for a little vacation I was invited to go camping with a group of sporty types and to make a climb up Mount Shasta. Being often ready for a new adventure, I thought I could meet the challenge of climbing a mountain and I also thought it would be really nice to be out in nature. And--I especially liked the idea that we would decend Mount Shasta on plastic trash bags after the climb. It all sounded great, so I went. Well... The camping was fine, except that the food was entirely planned with the ideas of Super-Health in mind-that is, the food had no taste. The idea was to prepare our bodies for the big climb. Now, just to let you know, I was neither out of shape nor was I an unhealthy eater at the time. Being involved in the area of eating disorders as I was, I was well aware of the importance of good nutrition and regular exercise. But this kind of nutrition was something else altogether-it was all tasteless grains and protein bars of some sort. So, even before the climb began, I sensed that I was out of my element with this group. Well, then. The day of the climb came and we were all geared up. Our little backpacks were packed full of energy bars for lunch. We would each stop on our own for lunch as needed on the way up. So we started up. The real serious sporty types moved ahead of the group quickly, while discussing things like work-outs, triathlons, fat grams, the latest power diet and other such fascinating subjects. We all separated little by little and I soon resigned myself to the reality that this whole deal was not my thing. Yes, the surroundings were beautiful, but I got the feeling that I wasn’t getting a chance to take them in with all the focus on the big challenge. If I recall correctly, I believe I did make it up about a third of the mountain before I succumbed to altitude sickness. I and another lone struggler ended up having to quit. And somewhere along the way I’d lost my trashbag which was to act as my toboggan, so I think I ended up sliding down on my bottom. The super-studs made it very close to the top although in the end they were also forced to abandon the summit from exhaustion or from the lateness in the day or something. Well, I must say it wasn’t an entirely negative experience, since most of the group had a sense of exhiliration afterwards and it’s true the mountain air and exercise did me good. But essentially, the moral of the story for me was that I was never to be a Super-stud and would never be interested in a life of protein bars for lunch and discussions about fat grams and decathlons. Evidently, I did not belong in California ! Perhaps this experience has something to do with the reason I ended up here in France a couple of years later !

But the story isn’t over yet : When I arrived in Paris in 1991, and was staying with a French family, the first week I was here, they invited me on a randonée-you know, a long hike-of 25 kilometers. I told them politley that I’d think about it, but of course what I was thinking was « Oh no. Not this kind of intense thing again ! » Well, the family pressed the issue and tried to convince me that being out in nature in the forests outside of Paris would be a good thing for me to experience. So in order to please them, I compromised : I said that I’d go for half of the hike and at one point where the path passed through a town with a train station I’d make my escape. They agreed.
We were up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning and soon on a train out to somewhere. I was rather lost in the French language at that time, but decided to enjoy the whole cultural experience and learn as much as possible. We got to the place where the randonée would start, everyone made sure we had enough water in our little bottles, and the hike started off with a bang. Straight uphill. It was November and I’d been freezing up to that point, but soon I was quite warm heading up that hill-and I was earnestly whispering my « little toot chant » « I think I can, I think I can. » Eventually the path flattened out and seemed to stay pretty flat. The surroundings were beautiful. I figured I’d better enjoy the easy part of the trek while it lasted so I took in the beauty and tried to converse with the French people who were all chatting away... and, strangely... not walking at a « speed walk » pace. I was surprised to notice that the pace was somewhere between a leisurely stroll and a hearty walk. Nobody was talking about aerobics, triathlons or calories either ! I was again surprised when, after two hours of not-so-strenuous walking, we all plopped down and they pulled out snacks - of pain au chocolat, croissants, pain au raisin and thermos’ of coffee and hot chocolate. Coffee with real sugar even ! « Whoa » I thought, this is different. It was great ! When I pulled out my supply of miserable little meal bars that my Shaklee-consultant friend had convinced me to buy (they were the answer to jet-lag, she assured me), I was practically laughed off the little picnic site. The French then took pity on me and offered me some real food-- a pain au chocolat-and informed me of the necessity « très important » of eating lots of dark chocolate in the wintertime-for the magnesium. I think this is when I knew I belonged in this country.
Well, the « gouter » at ten-o’clock , which lasted ½ an hour I think and was good fun, wasn’t my last pleasant surprise. We stopped for lunch around one o’clock and the first thing someone pulled out was whiskey ! For « a little aperitif ! » --he served each one of us a little bit and we had some snacky things to start the « repas » off « correctly. » Then came the ham, paté, baguettes, homemade salads, fruits and of course the wine to go with it. There was even homemade dessert and more coffee at the end ! We were there for a good hour laughing and talking about everything from politics to good vacation spots, when I realized I had to catch my train, as pre-planned, and I knew I’d made a mistake. Here I was, invigorated in body from the walk and in spirit from the festive food and conversation-I could easily have continued the randonée with great pleasure ! But since there was a much older man in the group whom I was to accompany back to Paris I couldn’t change the plan. So I left that day-but I made it to every other randonée that group did that year. And this experience, I think, was the first seed planted in my mind that grew towards the idea of studying cultural differences in attitudes and habits around food between the French and Americans. I realize that my story indicates a possible exploration of attitudes towards sports as well, but one has to narrow things down in order to focus, and since my area was already eating disorders it seemed obvious that that would be the focus of my research.

It was not only the randonée experience that got me thinking about this topic, but it was also through attending various French dinners, parties, weekends and observing the French in restaurants. Many times I found myself thinking-as other people in the recent past have done-« How do they do it, these French ? » Just through looking at the people on the streets, I saw that the majority were not overweight, yet these people didn’t seem to be obsessively talking about calories sodium content in food and fat grams to the degree that so many of my American friends and acquaintances seemed to do. So I asked the question « Is this just my own personal experience, my own perception, or is something going on here ? Are these French onto something ? »

Well, in fact, one only has to look at the differences in rates of obesity between France and the US to see that my experience was not purely a subjective one.
France indeed only has one out of twenty people who fulfill the criteria for the definition of obesity, whereas almost one out of every four Americans are obese. Generally, obesity is defined as 30% above one’s ideal body weight. But the figures I just gave you, which come from the World Health Organization and the Observatoire des Habitudes Alimentaires et du Poids, are derived from a more stringent definition which is base on the Body Mass Index, which I’ve described here for you. According to the WHO, obesity has reached epidemic proportions in the United States.
And yet, as you’ll see further on in my talk when I talk about studies done on this subject, Americans in general worry a lot more about health and overeating than do the French !

Now, Bulimia and Anorexia Nervosa, being psychological disorders expressed through overeating and purging or the refusal to eat, are another story. We don’t yet have comparative figures for both countries, although for other European countries, so far the figures for bulimia appear to be lower. A study was done on bulimia here in France and it did appear to show that the figures for France are lower than what they are in the US, but since the study did not directly study Americans using the same instrument with which they studied French subjects, we can’t yet say that it’s true. Comparing rates of eating disorders (AN & BN) is in fact one of the objectives of my study which I’ll explain shortly. So that’s a bit about how I came to this topic-and I hope in the next few years and through a series of studies to find out what exactly are the factors that lead to such a significantly lower rate of obesity in France. In essence I’d like to find out exactly what we can learn from these frog-leg eaters !

Now, I’d like to make just a quick disclaimer on the side : All of this is not to say I don’t think the French have a few things to learn from us peanut butter eaters, too ! In fact I have stories--as you all must have as well--which are the contraire of the one I just told you above. For example, when I moved home to California for a period of time before getting married, I noticed little by little that a feeling of positiveness, an « I can do anything I set my mind to » feeling started coming over me, and a friend that had lived in France for eight years, who’d also moved back to California, noticed the same thing-she began to get enthusiastic about her ideas and possibilities in life. I came to have a new appreciation for the American dream, which, while I lived in France I viewed with skepticism. I came to see it as having a certain validity. But this is another topic for another day-I don’t at present plan to study positive attitudes and their effects between the French and Americans, this is just my way to disclaim the idea that I have a bias towards all things French. I don’t. Yet, when it comes to the area of food, it seems clear to me that the French have the edge on us.

II. Main Points

So now I’ll get into what my study is all about and I’ll briefly outline some other studies which support the idea that not only France, but some other Western European countries as well have an overall healthier approach to eating than does the US.

A- The study that I’m presently conducting, called The Stanford-Paris Eating Attitudes and Body Image Study, is being done in Lycées in and around Paris and High Schools in and around Stanford and the San Francisco area. I’m working with a team from Stanford and with researchers from the INSERM here in France.
We’re giving two questionnaires to the students, one which investigates risk factors for developing eating disorders, that is, it gives an indication if a particular student shows signs and symptoms which put him/her at risk for developing Anorexia or Bulimia ; and the other which looks at eating habits and attitudes towards food.

What are the hypotheses of this study ? What do I expect to find ?
Well, if you haven’t already guessed by the tone of my opening story, I’ll tell you ! We expect to show the following :

• Higher risk factors for EDs for the US students-other studies indicate this is what we’ll find.
• Higher incidence of EDs for the US population-again we’ve seen this hypothesis supported in previous studies and I’ll talk about those in a minute.
• Higher overweight for the US population-just as we saw in the WHO statistics. But also we expect to find that US girls will be heavier, but will desire to be much thinner than French girls. That is, we expect to find a more unrealistic idea of desired/ideal weight in the American group.
• Higher frequency in the French population of : big family meals, longer meals, higher usage of fresh products, meals made from scratch, moderate family exercise after large meals, 3 meals a day habit.
• US higher incidence of : snacking between meals, fast food meals, skipping meals.

As I mentioned, these hypotheses are not solely based on my personal observation of people in both countries, but are also the resulting conclusions I came up with after making an extensive review of the previous research done in this area. I looked at many previous studies which looked at North America and Western Europe with regard to eating disorders, eating attitudes and habits etc.

B- Some fascinating research has been done in this area, but I’ll only outline a few studies which seem relevant here and which I think you’ll find interesting too.

1. The first study was done in Northeastern Spain and in the Northeastern US. Large groups of high school students from big cities, suburbs and smaller towns were given questionnaires called the Eating Attitudes Test, which is a well known and respected instrument.

Here are the significant results they found :

• There were more American girls than Spanish girls with bulimia nervosa symptoms
• The overall level of Eating Disorder symptoms was higher among the Americans Americans showed greater body image preoccupation than the Spanish
• The American students weighed more on average than the Spanish subjects

The authors made the following comments, which I found interesting and which influenced the direction of my own study :

« There are differences between Spain and the US with respect to eating practices and the typical diet. In Spain there is a rigid practice of eating three regular meals per day. The majority of the Spanish eat all their meals, including lunch, at home with the rest of the the family. The Mediterranean diet of the Spanish is low in fat. Compared with meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables, desserts or snack foods that are high in fat and sugar are the least preferred, and in fact, are not popular at all. ‘Fast food’ or pre-prepared foods have achieved little success. Also, Spanish children are generally urged by parents to finish all the food that they are served at meals... Thus, compared with the Us, where there seems to be less constraint in eating practices, the Spanish adhere to some customs which may inhibit the development of chaotic dietary patterns. »

2. The second study I’d like to share with you is one that was done between Austria and the United States.

In this study, college age women were given questionnaires exploring symptoms of bulimia and eating and dieting attitudes in general. Half of the Austrians were bulimic patients from a hospital and half of the Americans were also bulimia patients. The remainder two groups-the control group-were women who showed no symptoms of eating disorders.

Here are some of the findings of this study :

• Americans were significantly heavier than their Austrian counterparts
• But Americans’ desired weight was actually lower than that of Austrians...thus, the difference between actual and desired weight was twice as great in American than in Austria...so that Austrian bulimic subjects actually resembled American control subjects.
• On questions regarding satisfaction with body shape, feeling fat at current weight and agreeing or disagreeing with the statement « I really like my body, » Americans consistently reported markedly lower satisfaction with body image than Austrians
• When asked if their self-confidence improved with weight loss, 67% of Austrians responded « yes » as opposed to 97% of Americans. 78% of the Austrians, but all 100% of the Americans reported that their self-confidence declined when they gained weight.
• These « findings give the impression that, regardless of illness, there is a cultural emphasis on thinness in the US which exceeds that in Austria.

Interestingly, on the comments such as the second to the last one, you would think that with ½ of the group as non-Eating Disordered in any way, that the American figures would be lower, brought down by the normals as is probably the case in the Austrian group. It’s likely that it’s the Austrian bulimics who provide the majority of these figures, whereas Americans as a whole responded positively to what are typically considered bulimic attitudes !

Now, here I’d like to digress for just a minute to ask the question « Why is this ? » « What is happening in America and especially with American women ? »

Well, at Stanford and in many other research groups on eating disorders in America, a lot of work has been done which looks at the effects of the media and advertising on Americans, especially their effects on adolescents and their body image. Most of these studies propose and show that the mixed message diffused in the media has something to do with this American problem of low self-esteem and the body. The message says something like this : « overconsume, overeat, overbuy but be rail-thin. » Now I won’t go into heavy detail on this area since it’s another whole can of worms, but I’ll make a few comments. Overall, anyone can see that the number of snack products available in the US and the advertising promoting the idea of « buy more, buy bigger » on the one hand and on the other hand the magazines, commercials, movies and TV shows showing overly thin women and lean super-worked-out men promotes confusion and actually symbolizes the whole conflict of bulimia and compulsive overeating ! And adolescents are particularly vulnerable to these messages in the media and so are at higher risk for developing eating disorders. So that gives at least an overview of one of the reasons why it appears that Americans are showing higher symptoms of problems around weight and food.

3. The third and final study I’d like to share with you is one which I only recently got hold of. It’s a very recent study, which looks at almost the same ideas as my study does, only the subjects are college students and adults and they don’t look at eating disorders themselves, just at eating habits, perceptions and attitudes. The subjects are from France, the United States, Belgium and Japan and the results are very interesting.

Here are some quotes which summarize the most significant findings :

• The greatest concern about the healthiness of food habits was shown by American men and women, whereas the least concern for the healthiness of food habits was shown by French men.
• On the factor which measured worry and guilt about fattening effects of food as opposed to the savoring of and pleasure with food, the highest « worry » score was achieved by American adult and student females. « Americans seemed to have the worst of both worry worlds, the greater concern and the greater dissatisfaction with food. »
• When questioned about the importance of pleasure and the importance of food itself, the French showed a strikingly higher score, with French adult males receiving the highest scores. American student females received the lowest.
• On factors which explored culinary associations as opposed to nutritional associations, Americans showed the lowest tendency to culinary association with the Japanese as « most culinary. »

The authors note that « There are numerous studies that show links between pleasure experiences and good health and between stress and poor health »

And they suggest that « it is conceivable that American worries and obsessions about healthy foods may be counter-productive, producing substantial reductions in the quality of life, and perhaps having no or even negative effects on the length of life

They point out that « The recent survey of food choice and attitudes to food and health in the European Union locates the French among the least concerned about diet and health, least inclined to change diet for health reasons, and least concerned with dietary fat among the European countries. Among the Europeans, the French are inclined to define healthy eating more in terms of balance, variety and freshness. »

And finally, « One account of the French-American contemporary differences has to do with different traditional eating patterns in the two countries, with a French emphasis on moderation and high quality, and an American emphasis on high quantity.»

C- So those are some studies which also support the idea that the French are onto something and that we Americans would do well to catch on, too.
Now as I said, I propose to do a whole series of studies in the future between France and the US in order to eventually arrive at scientifically supported model of balanced attitudes towards food, a model that will hopefully be adopted in the US so as to reduce the incidence of obesity and eating disorders.

Here are a couple of my ideas for other studies :

1. One future study I’d like to conduct would look at people’s perceptions of portions and what they think a « normal portion » is.
I alluded to this earlier when I was talking about the mixed media and advertising message. There was a wonderful article last year in the Boston Globe, by Ellen Goodman, called « Those Portions of Outrageous Proportion or The Bagel that Ate New York. » When I saw this article I thought « Aha ! I’m not the only one who’s been noticing this insane trend ! » In fact, I just got back from the US last week and while I was there I was again impressed by the sizes of snicker’s bars, doughnuts, and muffins that are so big that the centers aren’t even fully cooked. And my favorite-or should I say least favorite-discovery is that of a restaurant from Chicago, called Morton’s, I think, which takes pride in it’s Fred Flinstone sized steaks ! And we’re surprised that one in four Americans are obese ! I ordered an « appetizer » salad at the Cheesecake Factory 2 weeks ago which would’ve been served to a family of eight here in France ! I’ve been harping about the giant 7 - 11 cokes for years, so I won’t go on that tirade for now because you get the idea. So. I’d like to follow through on an idea that was mentioned in Goodman’s article on portions. She talked about a teacher who’d asked her students to bring in what they considered a « normal or medium » sized portion of a given food and was surprised to see the king-sized things they brought in.

So, in the future I’d like to compare groups of French and Americans and show them different portion sizes of foods and ask them to label them « normal » and « large » etc.

I’d like to also add the variable of time to this study, that is, ask them how much time they think it would take to eat certain portions of food.
Incidentally, time and eating has been studied with animals and yielded important results. Cats who were given larger than necessary portions for their size and which were trained to eat very quickly, were still as hungry four hours later as other cats which were given correct portions for their size and plenty of time to eat. So the first cats, as well as the second cats ate again four hours later and twice as much as the others. The first cats, of course, became fat cats. You see, it takes a full 20 minutes for the hypothalamus, which processes hunger and satiation in the brain, to receive the message that you have begun to eat ! When one eats too quickly they are able to consume more because the brain doesn’t even know you’ve started yet, so it still thinks you are hungry even if you’ve already consumed a healthy amount of food for your size !

2. Other future studies I’d like to conduct would look at different age groups than the one I’m presently studying, and would take a further look at pleasure, worry and guilt around food.

In the field of Eating Disorders it is well established that worry and guilt around food is the actual motor which keeps the Eating Disorder active.
How does this work ? Well, it often starts with a diet:

• Certain foods are deemed « good » and « bad. »
• A feeling of deprivation develops while on the diet, and desire for « bad » foods increases
• Guilt is associated with the bad foods. I am good if I resist, I am bad if I don’t.
• If one indulges, the underlying guilt for having done so now deprives the person from true enjoyment of the food, so they are not satisfied and they feel guilty.
• More deprivation is felt, deprivation of pleasure taken in from pleasurable foods
• Often a binge is then triggered because more of the bad food is desired since the first indulgence didn’t satisfy.
• So with this mentality, one can’t win. She is deprived if she doesn’t give herself a bit of pleasure, she is deprived of peace of mind if she does.
• And she doesn’t enjoy the indulgence in the « bad food » before, during or after eating it.
• And you have a binge - diet cycle which begins

And the mention of this cycle, brings me to my final main point which is a summary of what I’ve been getting at in the last hour.

The principal of the French Equilibre is « go ahead and have that rich dessert - either after a good meal or as a regular, daily gouter-and actually taste it and enjoy it ! There’s no need to overdo it when you’ve taken full pleasure in what you’ve eaten ! Therefore, there is no guilt/deprivation scenario happening which would leave the person feeling as if they’d like more since what they ate didn’t satisfy. Whereas the French emphasize moderation, they also emphasize « but enjoy what you do eat !»

What else constitutes the French equilibre ?

• Eat well, fresh foods that are homemade (as often as possible)
• Exercise moderately and consistently
• Take walks with the family after large meals
• Three meals a day and maybe a gouter
• • Lunch is the big meal of the day
  • Dinner is usually light
• A variety of foods served at each meal
• Delicious, high quality, tasty food prepared and presented with care
• Interaction with others during meals
• Time is taken to eat and fully enjoy the experience

Somewhere along the way in the US we’ve gotten off this track.

III. Conclusion

Overall, my message to you today is :

Observe the French Equilibre while you’re here
Spend time with the French in their homes if you can
Go on randonées with them
And as much as possible try to absorb the pervasive mentality of the French Equilibre when it comes to food lifestyle.
Moderation and rhythm is the key

So my final words are : Dump the guilt, leave the calorie counting behind yet listen to your body’s general need for healthy and moderately sized portions of good food. Choose exercize that isn’t so intense that it intimidates you to do it-make it fun. Take your time to converse with family and friends overly leisurely meals, on the weekends when you can’t make it on weeknights.

And above all...finish it all off with a lovely bit of something made with dark chocolate... --For the magnesium of course !