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Skinny French women don't think they are thin
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-24 08:05
In other European countries the opposite is true: the number of women in Britain, Spain and Portugal, for example, who see themselves as seriously skinny easily outstrips the number who actually are.
"If a French person who feels fat were to go to the United States," - which has much higher rate of obesity - "he probably wouldn't feel fat anymore," he said.
In western Europe, the mean weight of men in every country except France and The Netherlands tips the scales into the "overweight" category, according to World Health Organization (WHO) standards. By contrast, in only three nations do women join the men in crossing that line: Britain, Greece and Portugal. And only among the Dutch does one find more overweight women than men.
A BMI of 25-to-30 indicates being overweight, while above 30 means one is obese. The range of normal weight is 18.5-to-24.9.
In that same period, the proportion of underweight French men held steady at just under two percent. Beyond objective differences, men and women don't perceive their own deficient or excess weight in the same way either, the study found. "Men denigrate their own bodies when they are underweight, but when they are overweight, they often don't see a problem," said de Saint Pol, adding that outright obesity was another story. "When women are underweight, they do not devalue that at all. But as soon as they cross the line into overweight, they find that unacceptable." While particularly striking in France, this axiom held true across all 15 of the European countries covered in the study. De Saint Pol pointed to powerful cultural symbols that reinforced these different attitudes, though it is hard to tell whether they are more cause or effect. For women, he said, the body is related to beauty, and beauty to being thin. For men, however, carrying weight is felt in oneself and perceived in others - consciously or not - as projecting strength. "This is especially true the further down one goes on the socioeconomic ladder," he said. |