Some highlights:
the study found that the French participants didn't snack, generally defined as consuming one to two between-meal foods, such as a handful of peanuts and a glass of orange juice. "The French ate less than one snack a day. Here in the U.S., we have about three snacks a day," says R. Curtis Ellison, MD, professor of preventive medicine and epidemiology at Boston University School of Medicine and the study's lead researcher.
Alas, the culture is changing:Their substantial lunch and dinner often usurps the need for a snack. As a result, "snacking is simply not part of the culture," says Annie Jacquet-Bentley, a Parisian restaurant consultant currently based in Birchrunville, Pa. Her eating habits remain fiercely snack-free despite having lived in the snack-filled U.S. for more than 20 years.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/03/news/obese.php
PARIS Doctors here are perplexed by the runaway success in the United States of the best-selling advice book "French Women Don't Get Fat."
"Oh, but they do!" said Dr. France Bellisle, a prominent obesity researcher here. "I work in a nutrition department where we see lots of people who are overweight. And I can tell you that French women are getting obese - and some massively obese - these days."
ReinhardIn fact, in France, as in much of the world, the culprit is changing eating habits, experts said, as France's powerful culture of traditional meals has given way to the pressures of modern life. The French now eat fewer formal meals than they did just a decade ago and they snack more.