Snacking Dooms the French Paradox

The French have always eaten a complex carbohydrate rich diet containing three times the amount of saturated fat as Americans – and never gained weight. Red wine, garlic, onions, olive oil, home cooking, fresh ingredients, a larger lunch, no snacking, and a smaller dinner were cited as reasons for the success of the French to maintain their proper weight.

Then, in 2000, the unthinkable happened. French public health officials identified the French were getting fat, 33% were overweight or obese, a rate comparable to Americans back in the in the 70s. Fast food companies and junk food machines had invaded France, the 30 billion-a-year snacking industry swooped down upon France - a culture that did not know what the word “snack” meant.

The Western world's wonder foods – nutritionless, sugar-laden, overly processed, chemically contaminated, and full of addictive “brand” chemicals went to war against a culture that had it right. The French launched a program to cut obesity 20% by 2005, a program that has miserably failed. The French lost, and are now catching up with the rest of the industrialized world, as 42% of their adults are overweight or obese. Obesity in their children has quadrupled in the past 25 years.

The Leptin Diet explains the real science behind why the French were able to not gain weight for such a long period of time. It is the solution to the obesity epidemic in America.