> citing a book whose French author described with horror seeing Americans eating alone, or at any time of day.
> “France is a very rules-based society,” Ms. Saguy said. “There are rules about eating in France, about mealtimes, and you need to follow the rules.”
I would call that BS. French people eat whenever they want and nobody cares really. That being said, my personal experience is that French (and Europeans in general) are still much more conscious of what they eat than Americans, which is probably why they are thinner. I was surprised while living in the US to see even very educated people feed their kids with junk food and sodas.
However, this is gradually changing. More and more people eat junk food (e.g. Mac Donald's is extremely popular in France) thanks to food corporations propaganda and lobbying. Not surprisingly, obesity rates are increasing. Small relief, obese people won't be discriminated against when we're all fat.
"In 2012, fast food restaurants spent $4.6 billion in total on all advertising, an 8% increase over 2009. For context, the biggest advertiser, McDonald's, spent 2.7 times as much to advertise its products as all fruit, vegetable, bottled water, and milk advertisers combined."
So fast food restaurants came into Europe without a concurrent marketing and advertising push? They just built the restaurants and people came, because it was tasty, fast, and cheap?
> “France is a very rules-based society,” Ms. Saguy said. “There are rules about eating in France, about mealtimes, and you need to follow the rules.”
I would call that BS. French people eat whenever they want and nobody cares really. That being said, my personal experience is that French (and Europeans in general) are still much more conscious of what they eat than Americans, which is probably why they are thinner. I was surprised while living in the US to see even very educated people feed their kids with junk food and sodas.
However, this is gradually changing. More and more people eat junk food (e.g. Mac Donald's is extremely popular in France) thanks to food corporations propaganda and lobbying. Not surprisingly, obesity rates are increasing. Small relief, obese people won't be discriminated against when we're all fat.