Is Dieting The Secret To Weight Loss?

You’ve heard about the French and that the French have a diet that would put weight on any American, but most of them can stay thin. The exception is people with health problems. The men and women of all ages in France are thin. When we first looked at their diet we thought that the red wine they drank was the answer. These people eat out as much as we do, they don’t even know what low cal means. So how do they do it? Well, first they walk more. City people don’t use cars that much, They walk everywhere. Also, bike riding is more popular, you see gasoline has always been expensive in Europe and the people have learned to conserve. Conserving food is something that France has done since World War II when food was scarce. So today their meal portions are smaller than ours and combine this with the increased amount of walking the French do and it’s much easier for them to control their weight. One other reason is that fresh foods are more expensive and the average french diet consists of more fresh foods than we eat.

Now how does that help you? Well, there are studies going on today that are discovering that our meal portions may be double what we need. So how much food do you need? First of all, I think we all know that Americans eat too much and that we are a nation of overweight people. Studies have also been done in the far east. Thailand, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to see why those people have much less Cancer than North Americans. They found that the people there are very healthy. They don’t have the weight problems we do and there more physically fit. So are we the only country that is habitually overindulging? Well no, Canadians and the English are just starting to change with this new generation of young people. A lot of the Central European and Eastern European countries had the same problems.

So what’s the answer? Besides the quantity of food consumed also the quality of the food makes a difference. In France for instance, yes they eat smaller meals but they also eat better than we do. In fact, most of Western Europe eats better than we do. And I don’t mean more. I mean a better quality of food. Food is made with fresh ingredients and made from scratch every day because refrigeration is still a new concept in most parts of rural Europe. By new I mean in the last twenty years.

After World War II Europe was pretty much in ruins and yes the big cities did rebuild pretty quick. By the early 50′s tourism was once again a major industry. But the rural parts of the different countries took much longer to recover. So farming communities didn’t have electricity for many years.

Europe is really only one or two generations away from the Big War. It’s this new generation today that doesn’t remember the War or the recovery. The reason I bring this up is that the rebuilding of Europe took a lot of sacrifice from the people. It turned a whole generation into very conservative people. Scrimping to buy food, living in war-torn buildings, and very few jobs. Europeans still live a more conservative life, if you grow up conservative your more likely to be conservative, but now this new generation, the under 50 groups, lives more like we do. Except that things are a lot more expensive and most young people work in the service business, hotels, restaurants, and other tourist jobs. So to get to the point, the prosperity we enjoy in this country is the main cause of our overweight problem. And now that fast food is growing popular in Europe, I think another generation from now and Europe may have the same weight problems we have today.

There will always be some difference though. Prices in Europe vs. earnings or take-home pay will probably stay less than the U.S. Spendable income is less percentage-wise so Europe may be more conservative than the U.S. for quite some time and they still walk more than we do and if they stay a more active people then maybe they won’t have a weight problem.

Everyone blames fast food and cheap food for our overweight nation. I think it will be interesting to see what happens in China now that fast food is all the rage. I wonder how long we’ll have to wait.

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