Phoebe disagrees with my post on French Women Don't Get Fat below. She makes two points - first, that I overstate the French health advantage, and second, that "incidental walking", as I describe it, is ineffective in producing weight loss. I suspect we agree on more than not, but I do want to address these two points.

As to the magnitude of the French obesity advantage, it is broadly true that the French are slowly getting fatter. As Phoebe concedes, however, the extent to which this is true can be pretty closely tied to their increasing abandoment of the lifestyle I was lauding. No, it's not true that literally all French people are lean and trim - I overstated the case. But obesity in France in at least half of what it is in the US according to the statistics I've seen, which is astonishing for a country so singularly unobsessed with weight. I've lived with French people at universities, both men and women - I've spent a lot of time there as well. Weight loss is simply not on the agenda in the way it is here. And that's because the people are leaner - not because wine is some sort of mysterious de-fatter, but because they eat less and exercise (in a broad sense) more.

Second, incidental walking is indeed effective in burning calories and fat. The article to which Phoebe links makes no claim otherwise - it merely says there are better ways of burning calories, and that walking doesn't create muscle. Those are both true, but a constant burn of even 300 or 400 calories per day (an hour or so of brisk walking) will have powerful effects on weight. I hate pulling out personal anecdotes, but it certainly worked for me. Do I now do other sports as well? Of course - that's how you develop cardiovascular fitness and muscle tone. But walking will help, and it will help because if you design your life right, you can't avoid doing it.