French women don't get fat? Wrong

"French Women Don't Get Fat." That's the title of a fad diet book that's currently on the bestseller lists. It preys on Americans who haven't been to France lately, which is most of us. And like all fad diet books, it's false. I knew that already from my travels, but a just-released International Obesity Task Force report on the 25 European Union nations backs up what I've seen.

Don't read it while alone, however; it's scary stuff.

Those French women who don't get fat? Well, over a third of them are currently either overweight (fat) or obese (really fat). More worrisome yet are the trend lines. Obesity in French women rose from 8 percent in 1997 to 11.3 percent in 2003, an increase of over 40 percent. (For men it was about the same, from 8.4 percent to 11.4 percent.)

True, the French levels of overweight and obesity appear to still be half the rate as in the United States and the lowest in Europe, but considering the French trend line that should be little consolation. The French figures are probably too low to reflect reality.

That's because the data for the United States and 20 of the European Union countries are based on measurements taken by researchers. But for France and just four of the other European nations, the figures come from the individuals themselves. And studies repeatedly show people understate their weight. Italy's fatness rate is almost as low as France's and (surprise!) the Italian numbers are also based on self-reports.

Further, objective measurements of French children (aged 7-11) show about a fifth are fat. That's average for the EU and slightly worse than in the United States.

The Task Force estimated that among the EU's 103 million youngsters, 400,000 more become overweight each year.

Clearly, "The time when obesity was thought to be a problem on the other side of the Atlantic has gone by," as Mars Di Bartolomeo, Luxembourg's Minister of Health, observed. In fact, in Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Greece, Malta and Slovakia, a higher percentage of men are obese or overweight than the estimated 67 percent of men in the United States.

There may still be plenty of reasons to make fun of Americans, but you'll have to drop oversize guts and butts from the list.

Anyway, obesity has never really been a "funny" topic.