Counterclockwise in Europe

I am writing this post from Prague where, in three days of walking the streets of four different districts, I have yet to see a morbidly obese person.  The closest I came was yesterday, at a sidewalk café on a street leading to Prague Castle, when a rather chunky woman sat down at the table next to us.  She was – I am delighted to tell you – French, thus disproving the French Women Don’t Get Fat thing.  But aside from her, no one.  It was the same thing in Vienna, where I was last week.

I will also say that it is almost impossible to get a skim milk cappuccino anywhere over here.  And the stores – my favorite thing to do in a foreign country is to go grocery shopping – don’t offer shelves of “fat-free” this or “low carb” that.  The folks over here in the Old World appear not to fetishize their food like we New Worlders do.  The eat, and they enjoy it.  They eat and they don’t get fat like we do.

Maybe – the female diner I saw yesterday notwithstanding – you believe in the “French Paradox”:  The French eat rich foods and pastries and don’t get fat because they drink red wine.  Fine. But what about the Czechs who drink beer.  A lot.  Huge steins (liters!) of Pilsner Urquell.  What about the Austrians who wash down fried pork cutlets (aka schnitzel) and potatoes with tall glasses of Gosser.

Here’s my take on their “secret.”

They eat a big lunch, a multi-course, sit-down, enjoy-yourself lunch.  (Dinner is small, almost an after thought.)

They walk.

They watch a lot less TV than we do.

And did I mention they walk?

We (and by we I mean I) are obsessed with eating low fat and low glycemic index and with cutting calories and sweating at the gym.  And we’re getting fatter and fatter.  Over here, they eat all the stuff we shun, and they look fit.  The old folks walk hills and manage cobblestone streets.  Walk being the operative word.