Gabrielle Deydier

Apologies for the lack of postings as of late: - I gave birth to our fourth son a couple of months ago.  Bilal is obviously delighted and wanting more.  I have no reason to say no: - I always eat sensibly and therefore have no worries about what effect this will have on my impossibly dainty figure.

I have been asked a few times what I think about Gabrielle Deydier, the supposed Frenchwoman denouncing "grossophobie", so I thought I would write a blog post on this subject.  For English-speaking readers of this post, an article summarising the situation can be found at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/10/gabrielle-deydier-fat-in-france-abuse-grossophobia-book-women .  Note that The Guardian is the British publication that Zoë Williams tends to write for: - she is the journalist who whinges about how perfect we Frenchwomen are.

Gabrielle Deydier claimed she was pushed out of her job as a special education classroom assistant because of her weight.  Me personally, I think it is useless speculating about whether this is true or not.  Maybe she was difficult to deal with in other ways?  We will probably never know.  In my experience as an employer, people often make silly claims like this to divert attention away from poor performance, bad behaviour and other things that make them undesirable employees.

I also note the part about how she spent a year in Spain where her weight wasn't an issue.  Let's be honest here: - France and Spain are not only part of the Single Market (people can live and work in each other's nations under the Maastricht Treaty), but also the Schengen Zone (no hard borders).  You can get on the TGV at various French stations and there is nothing (except perhaps ticket checks) stopping people getting to Spain.  If I were that unhappy with life in France (I am not by any stretch of the imagination), I would ask myself if emigration would improve my life.

Let me be candid here: - I think she looks disgusting and a disgrace to the effortlessly perfect French women you see all around the country.  When I showed Bilal a photo of her and asked his opinion, he didn't hesitate to describe her as "cheum" (verlan for "moche", French for ugly).  I understand the school's difficulty in allowing someone so fat to be around children and set a bad example, but if you are running a fashion magazine (like I am) and someone turns up at an interview looking like that, it makes it clear that they don't have any interest in what we cover as a magazine (looking good, which fashion contributes to).  It reminds me of the interview scene from "The Devil Wears Prada" where Anne Hathaway's character turned up for the interview with Meryl Streep's character unrepentant about her lack of interest in fashion.

That said, I do feel sorry for her, as The Guardian's article makes it clear that the doctor prescribed some remedies that are just not French!  He prescribed medication and a diet of meat and boiled vegetables.  Did the doctor just not know what he was doing?  We Frenchwomen eat all sorts of things that the outside world considers "naughty", such as cheese (I love local cheeses like Banon, Saint-Marcellin, Picodon de la Drôme and Picodon de l'Ardéche), tartiflette, foie gras, Nutella crêpe, steak frites, baguettes, Quiche Lorraine, Croque Monsieur, Raclette/fondue, confit de canard and many other lovely dishes.  As Mireille Guiliano rightly points out, we eat for pleasure (not punishment), but there are some things we do to maintain our wonderful beanpole thin figures: -

• Not eating between meals: - we have proper meals three times a day to eliminate the temptation to snack
• Concentrating on meals properly, so as to avoid mindless eating
• Passive exercise: - walking and taking the stairs as far as reasonably practicable
• Choosing foods that taste delicious, so we get our jollies from the taste, rather than our stomachs being stretched
• Make food look visually appealing for the same reason
• Avoiding uselessly sweet foods, say having desserts slightly sour and only as sweet as they need to be to cleanse the palate of the previous course (e.g. tarte au citron) or perhaps a cheese course before the dessert
• Eating real foods: - breaking the link between sweetness/fat (say with artificial sweeteners and low-fat foods) and calories confuses the body, causing people to eat more
• Never dieting: - we change our habits permanently if something goes wrong
• Drinking bottled water, rather than unhealthy fizzy drinks: - I don't care if Greta Thunberg, the high priestess of the green religion, disapproves of me for this
• Sip champagne and fine wines regularly, but not hard liquor: - hard liquor comes with many additional calories and blunts the taste buds, making it harder to get our jollies from the taste

And, drum roll............................................................

• Saying "la moitié, s'il vous plaît" ("just half of that, please") when offered some food, not forgetting what Mireille Guiliano said about how there are three ways French women stay thin: - portion control, portion control and portion control

In summary, I think Gabrielle Deydier could turn her situation around if she tried (along with some sound advice from an average French woman that she seems to lack).  She has passed her prime career years, but she may be able to recover some semblance of a career if she gets herself back on track.  Rather than whingeing about "grossophobie", she should take responsibility and lose the weight.