Getting into good habits early on

I recently read an article about parents overfeeding babies.  When I first realised I was expecting a baby, one of the first thing Bilal and I discussed was what we would do regarding feeding habits when the baby arrived.  Obviously, it is good for new parents to have aligned attitudes about things involving children.  We agreed that feeding habits would be consistent for the initial period in the baby's life, as it is important for babies to get the food they need to grow properly.  No diligent parents would want to leave their children malnourished.

However, we agreed that at a certain age, there would be divergence according to gender.  Ideally, if our baby had been a girl, the first expression she would learn would not be "oui", "non", "papa" or "mama", but "la moitié, s'il vous plaît".  As indicated by the book "Why French children don't talk back" by Catherine Crawford, we French know a thing or two about how to raise children.  We like to get our children into good habits early on and beauty is one of the primary ways I plan to do this with any daughters I have: - I don't want them to grow up looking fat and ugly.

There is all sorts of talk in the Anglo-Saxon world about how women are bombarded with unrealistic images of what women should look like, to the extent that they have tried to make fat women legitimate by introducing a "curvy Barbie".  Apart from the fact that cartoon (or otherwise not-real) characters are exaggerated in how they are constructed, I think they should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging women to get fat like that!  With any daughters I have, I plan to promote the skinny ideal to them so they grow up to look like a pretty Frenchwoman, not a fat and dumpy Anglo-Saxon woman!  Quelle horreur!

However, none of this matters to us at present, as our baby turned out to be male.  To me, my ideal situation would be for him to grow up with the suave urbane sophistication of a traditional Frenchman, but with all the ruggedness and muscularity of Bilal, who plans to teach him how to run the farm he recently purchased in the mountains to the north of Marseille, making visits to his family's farms in Mali where possible to teach him about farming in an extreme climate.  I have no doubt that Bilal will want to introduce him to La Savine's culture, which I admit I have some reservations about, but I know Bilal will be more than capable of protecting him.  I have no doubt that our son will be irresistible to women if he manages to acquire both French sophistication and Malian ruggedness!

Anyway, if he is to have all these things, he will need a large food intake.  My food intake is fine, as I have a medium-intensity exercise routine (not considering using the lift unless my destination is more than 20 floors away and walking as much as possible).  However, our son will need more than that, so I am thinking of how to expand his dietary repertoire beyond Bilal's chicken and jollof rice!  MDR!  French cuisine has plenty of options for accomplishing muscle growth with high-calorie diets: - there are lots of dairy, meat and fish products that have been discussed in previous articles.  There are also lots of nice healthy fats in the area around Marseille, most notably olive oil, which will enable him to fulfil his calorific requirements without putting undue strain on his heart.

Anyway, all that is a long time away and I am still getting used to baby stuff!

Medical science aiding people with excuses

Though I most definitely don't have any interest in returning to the United Kingdom for anything other than business, given that the United Kingdom is a planned future market for my magazine, I find it expedient to keep abreast of current affairs, hence why I often find myself reading BBC News Online.

Another reason why it is expedient for me to read up on current affairs in the United Kingdom is the fact that sometimes, it gives stylish and sophisticated Frenchwomen such as myself excuses to feel good about ourselves and look down on less stylish and sophisticated British women.

I just came across one such excuse at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24402163 .  This article talks about how lots of people are wrongly labelled as having food addiction when in reality, they are just greedy and gluttonous.

I can't stand the way people in the Anglo-Saxon world constantly try to attach medical explanations to everything to justify human shortcomings.  In the USA, yuppies have enjoyed wasting psychiatrists' time when they knew perfectly well there was nothing wrong with them.  This nonsense has been around for a very long time.  I recall George Webber (the protagonist of the film "10", played by Dudley Moore) visiting a psychiatrist for frivolous reasons: - this film was released in 1979!

Examples abound everywhere.

Dyslexia is middle-class for thick: - middle-class Anglo-Saxon parents don't want to admit their children are actually thick as two short planks, so they get quacks to diagnose them with dyslexia.

Autism is also middle-class for badly-behaved.  Michael Savage, one of the few Americans with any common sense at all, was noted for saying, "Now, the illness du jour is autism. You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they're silent? They don't have a father around to tell them, "Don't act like a moron. You'll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.""  The Anglo-Saxon medical establishment, rather than admitting that it over-diagnoses people with autism spectrum conditions turned on him and persecuted him.  On the other hand, whilst the Anglo-Saxon world remains in ignorance, French people know all about how to raise children properly: - a lady named Catherine Crawford from Brooklyn, New York finally admitted that we French know best when it comes to raising children in her book "Why French children don't talk back" (a parody of Mireille Guiliano's "French women don't get fat").  However, she is a very rare breed.  Most of the time, rather than admit that we French know best about everything, the Anglo-Saxon world chooses to slag us off, e.g. this article about France's supposed autism treatment shame at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17583123 .  There is also a documentary in post-production called "Shameful" produced mainly by Alex Plank, an American autism advocate and film-maker, which attacks France's supposed poor record when it comes to autism treatment.

The truth is that we French, in our effortless perfection, recognise that sometimes, medical explanations are attached to human shortcomings to try unsuccessfully to justify them.

This is not to say that there aren't people out there with genuine binge-eating disorders, dyslexia, autism etc.  In fact, another reason I dislike all these phoney medical diagnoses is the likelihood that this will lead to the few people who do genuinely have binge-eating disorders, dyslexia, autism etc not being taken seriously, given that for every one person given a correct diagnosis, the medical profession probably gives 50,000 wrong diagnoses.  If the medical profession is not willing to stop phoney diagnoses on the basis that they are just excuses, it should stop phoney diagnoses on the basis that they make a mockery of people who really have the conditions.

Anyway, rant aside, because according to Zoë Williams, French women don't rant like this: - instead, we just light up another fag and say, "bof".  MDR!

Anyway, back to the main point.  Why won't people in the Anglo-Saxon world just realise how effortlessly perfect we French are and slavishly replicate our wonderful example?  We don't pig out on food and then blame it on phoney psychiatric illnesses.  No, what we do is we take responsibility: - we only eat the daintiest quantities of food of the highest quality, use the stairs rather than the lift, walk rather than take the car (though I have to admit I use the TGV for Paris-Marseille journeys, given that the distance is almost 750km, MDR) etc.

If one is overweight and does not feel "bien dans sa peau", one can do no better than refraining from seeing a psychiatrist and looking to the effortless perfection that we French display.