One of the great discoveries in medicine was made in France. The Germ Theory of Disease was credited to Louis Pasteur. This discovery has saved countless millions of lives. This was the last significant advance in medicine to come out of France and that was in the late 1800’s.

This week, France has made another great advance. Parliament has adopted a bill making it illegal for anyone to publicly incite extreme thinness. This means that the fashion magazines and other media can’t advertise all that diet stuff or they will be breaking the law. France is trying to prevent anorexia. It has gotten real bad over there. France has always been the pacesetter for clothes and fashion and it is the place to go to achieve success as a model. I don’t think these girls eat anything. One web site, in France, advocates eating only an apple a day. All this is interesting from a country that invented great cooking. There is an old story about a chef taking a leather glove and preparing it with all their fancy sauces and everyone thought it was the greatest thing they had ever eaten. Maybe that’s what the models are eating over there.

I’m glad that someone in the world is not going to bash fat and turn their attention to the skinny folks. France is not doing too badly with their life expectancy in site of the fact that they all smoke and drink like fish. The overall life expectancy in France is 79.6 years compared to 77.71 in the US. We are both a lot better off than Afghanistan, where it is 42.9 years. In some African countries it is in the 30s.

This week another medical warning was issued. Alcohol is reported to increase breast cancer risk by 30%. Alcohol is supposed to offer some protection for cardiovascular disease, so we just can’t win. Don’t tell the women in France about this latest warning. Most of the French live on alcohol rather than water. It seems like they would be consumed with breast cancer, but, interestingly enough, the incidence there is about the same as in the US.

Anyway, I’m happy that the French are going to direct their attention to bashing the thin folks and leave the fatties alone. I’m thinking of moving to France. It wouldn’t be bad having a porch in the south of France overlooking the Mediterranean. I could sip on wine all day, and snack on French food as I watched the sea. I might even see some of those topless girls who may look even better when they get a little fat covering their rib cage.