Heavy Tummies Mean Happy, Albeit Unhealthy, Hearts

Quick, the fast-food restaurant chain indigenous to France and Belgium, recently mounted a widespread ad campaign around Paris to celebrate its newest menu items. In what its advertising team has christened “Cheese Mania,” Quick is offering three new kinds of cheeseburgers for two weeks each. (The raclette and cantal version had its turn in mid-October; we are currently nearing the conclusion of the emmental phase; and chevre will have its heyday through the middle of November.)

Pass by any one of these casual eating establishments, easily recognizable by the red house-shaped logo with a “Q” on it, and you will see windows plastered with photographs of these double-decker burgers—each pictured, as though they’re bait, on an enlarged mousetrap. But you may be distracted by something other than the cheese slices dribbling down the sides of beef patties on these posters—because, written in large type along the bottom of each mousetrap, is the phrase, “For your health, avoid eating too much fat, sugar, and salt.”

This is not the doing of a disgruntled public relations employee trying to undermine Quick’s ability to sell burgers. Rather, it is the work of the French government’s Programme National Nutrition Santé, which translates to “National Nutrition Health Program.” The PNNS has mandated that all food advertisements be accompanied by snippets of nutritional advice, which also include: “For your health, practice a physical activity regularly,” “For your health, avoid snacking between meals,” and “For your health, eat at least five pieces of fruit each day.” Each tip is followed by the address of the PNNS Web site, mangerbouger.fr, which succinctly fuses the French verbs for “eat” (manger) and “move” (bouger).

The founding of the PNNS in 2001 made France the first European country to implement a public health program. But, despite the ubiquity of the mangerbouger.fr campaign, the PNNS, on its Web site and in its published mission statements, seems slightly uncomfortable in its role as the nation’s nutrition police—a role that its American equivalent, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, has embraced. The PNNS promotes scientifically based health advice and puts forth concrete goals for improving public health, but, ever conscious of the cultural traditions of food in France, refuses to suggest that health ought to be the sole criterion in choosing one’s diet.

The PNNS has nine explicitly stated public health-related objectives, including reducing lipid consumption to under 35 percent of the total average diet, reducing average cholesterol levels by 5 percent, and reducing average blood pressure by 10 mm. Obesity and obesity-related illness have risen rapidly in France since the 1990s, and the PNNS has created dietary guidelines similar to those offered by the USDA in an attempt to combat them.

But the PNNS departs from its American model when it declares, “Beyond its biological vocation, the act of eating has a strong cultural, social, and emotional charge; it is, in France, a moment of affirmed pleasure.” Alongside the daily dietary intake recommendations on its Web site, the PNNS includes a note clarifying that one must not cut out any food groups (even fatty cheeses and pastries, which the PNNS recommends limiting), since “From time to time, you can offer yourself a little pleasure.” And, in its official program statement, the PNNS claims that its dietary guidelines “associate with the objective of public health the notions of taste, pleasure, and conviviality.”

The USDA’s mypyramid.gov, by contrast, resists a similarly sentimental view of food. It encourages Americans to use the interactive food pyramid (which gives exact daily calorie recommendations based on age, sex, height, and weight) to: “Make smart choices from every food group,” “Find your balance between food and physical activity,” “Get the most nutrition out of your calories,” and “Stay within your daily calorie needs.” Nowhere to be found on the USDA site are any mentions of culture, tradition, or pleasure.

In comparison to the USDA’s dry, completely health-focused Web site, the PNNS, with its persistent mentions of pleasure, may seem to conform a little too ridiculously to the stereotypical French epicurean ethos. But which is more ridiculous: going a little overboard in reminding a population that eating is enjoyable, or trying to isolate food’s nutritional value entirely from its cultural and psychological facets? Americans might start rolling their eyes if the USDA began going on about the “moment of affirmed pleasure” to be had from food. But Americans’ diet-related health problems have more to do with food’s pleasurable aspect than with its nutritional value, and the USDA could stand to take a page from the PNNS’s book by acknowledging this truth.

The USDA would tell you not to eat a Quick “Cheese Mania” burger because it’s bad for your health. The PNNS would offer the same opinion, but would probably add that there’s little social or emotional satisfaction to be had in wolfing down an emmental-smothered ground meat sandwich from a cardboard container. I, for one, find the latter argument to be the more compelling of the two.