France’s other growth rate

last updated 8 January 2015

Even the French get fat, said Dermot Doherty and Marthe Fourcade in Bloomberg Businessweek, and weight-loss companies are taking their bulges to the bank. France has become one of Jenny Craig’s biggest growth centers, and rival Weight Watchers reports that enrollment in France is outpacing that in the rest of continental Europe. The French have long been envied for their waistlines, but a third of them are now overweight, partly because they’re more likely to frequent American fast-food chains. McDonald’s revenue in France grew 79 percent between 2004 and 2009, more than in Germany or the U.K. “The classic diet has changed,” says Mireille Guiliano, author of the best-seller French Women Don’t Get Fat. Jenny Craig clients in Paris even have to dodge temptation on their way to weigh-ins: There’s a Pizza Hut right across the street.