The Diet Myths: Stop believing everything!
updated the 12 June 2014 à 21:56No, chocolate is not fattening. Neither are bread and potatoes. All dieticians agree: What matters is that listen to your hunger, and eat just the right amount. Here’s our full expert report on the matter.
Where do our extra pounds come from? The list of culprits is long “in a region of 60 million nutritionists,” laughs Dr Arnaud Cocaul, author of Diets. Many of us to have our own ideas about the reasons why we are overweight. If we had to choose according to our eating habits, we would fault our rice, noodles, bread, chocolate…to each his own! But in the end, it does not matter with how much confidence we blame that extra bowl of rice for that extra ring of flab, because these speculations are not based in scientific truth.
The Exceptions
Why is it that obesity in some countries does not pose as big a problem as some others? Some may attribute it to the success of public health messages, but it is also the result of some part of culture, relationship with food and the way we consume meals, says Claude Fischler – director of research at CNRS – specializing in the kind of “eaters” we are. Taking your time in the dining room, sharing and spending time together are part of habits that are reflected as well in, for instance, French culture, which eventually protects our waistlines. But for how long? In a collective study, many researchers have analysed the emergence of many specific diets, due to intolerances, allergies and very often personal choice, which very likely to change the way we eat together.
Read more in our ‘Diet Myths’ report:
What makes us fat?
What makes us lose weight?
Is chocolate really fattening?
Do we have to follow a strict regime to lose weight?
Should we deprive ourselves of our favourite food?
Mathieu Rached
