While U.S. Leaders Blame Ultraprocessed Food, French Officials Acted to Preserve Local Markets, Reformulate Products, and Make Nutritious, Quick Meals Prominent, Resulting in Far Lower Obesity Rates.
The enduring observation that the French spend more time enjoying and preparing food than Americans is not a mere accident of superior willpower, but the direct result of deliberate governmental and municipal policies designed to cultivate a healthier food environment. As the United States continues to grapple with soaring rates of chronic disease and the political rhetoric of “reclaiming health” from corporate influence, the French experience offers a critical middle path: making nutritious food widely available, accessible, and convenient for busy, dual-income families.
The Middle Path of Convenience
For decades, the cultural challenge of food preparation in dual-income households—where the burden of cooking often falls disproportionately on women—has been similar in both France and the United States. However, while some American movements have framed cooking from scratch as an “edible food-like substances” resistance against corporations, Parisian officials acted decisively.
Parisians, including leading nutrition scientists like Mathilde Touvier, embraced a balanced approach that integrates modern convenience with nutritional standards. Ms. Touvier, a working mother of two, regularly utilizes frozen, pre-chopped vegetables from popular chains like Picard for fast, nutritious meals, viewing healthier prepared foods as “part of the solution” for time-pressed families. Picard, which operates over 1,100 stores, offers ready-made meals and frozen ingredients alongside dual-income families, making healthy convenience prominent even in the face of widespread calorie-dense culinary delights.
Policy and Regulatory Intervention
France’s success in slowing the rise of diet-related ailments like obesity and diabetes was the result of a conscious, policy-driven effort led by figures like epidemiologist Serge Hercberg, who soldiered through years of food industry pushback. Key governmental and municipal interventions included:
Nutri-Score Labeling: Mr. Hercberg and his colleagues developed Nutri-Score, a voluntary front-of-package nutrition labeling system that uses a colored scale (green A to dark orange E) based on the presence of salt, sugar, saturated fat, and calories, as well as healthy elements like fiber and protein. Over 1,400 brands, covering 62 percent of the French food market, adopted the system, spurring companies to reformulate their products for better health ratings and cultivating consumer demand for healthy convenience.
Urban Planning and Market Preservation: Paris embraced the “15-minute city” ideal, which mandates that essentials be reachable via a short walk or bike ride. The city financially supports local food purveyors, impedes the construction of large supermarkets through urban planning regulations, and encourages every district to host fresh produce markets each week.
School Lunch Reform: While Michelle Obama struggled to gain traction for her Let’s Move campaign in the United States, France had already banned vending machines in schools by 2012. Today, Paris strives to serve children mostly organic lunches low in added salt, sugar, and fat, with vegetarian options every week, phasing out all plastics.
The American Contrast and Public Health Outcomes
The results of France’s proactive measures are stark when contrasted with the United States. France maintains one of the lowest adult obesity rates in Western Europe, at 17 percent in 2020, with the rate in the Paris province even lower at 14 percent. In contrast, the adult obesity rate in the United States is nearly 40 percent. Furthermore, roughly a quarter of French people meet the national dietary guidelines for fruit and vegetable consumption, compared to about 10 percent in America.
The U.S. government, as published in The New York Times, has done relatively little to minimize junk food and improve access to affordable healthy food. Efforts by the Trump administration, such as having some junk food companies swap artificial dyes for natural ones or granting waivers to states to restrict SNAP benefits from being used on unhealthy products, represent only incremental steps. Michelle Obama’s initiatives faced enormous backlash from Republicans.
To truly change how Americans eat and avoid being “set up for sickness,” the U.S. must adopt a comprehensive strategy. Policy needs to dramatically improve the food environment, ensuring healthy foods are more available, accessible, and convenient for a working population. This includes making fresh produce more accessible, promoting healthier prepared and frozen food, and potentially allowing SNAP benefits to cover nutritious hot meals or giving tax breaks to supermarkets that prioritize healthy fare. Simultaneously, nutritionally bankrupt junk must be labeled, taxed, and minimized everywhere to create an environment where cooking is enjoyable, and convenient options are inherently nutritious.
Based on the original article published by The New York Times, available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/opinion/french-frozen-food.html
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