French women love to shop and prepare food. They love to talk about what they have bought and made. It's a deeply natural love, but one that is erased in many other cultures. Most French women learn it from their mothers, some from their fathers. But if your parents aren't French, you can still learn it yourself.

The real reason French women don't get fat is not genetic, but cultural, and if the French subjected themselves to the American extremes of eating and dieting, the obesity problem in France would be much worse than what has struck America.

Nothing but beauty and douceur

When I grew up in France, I was a normal size. And then I came to the United States and I gained 20 pounds.

I would advocate that chocolate be covered by health insurance, but that is admittedly a very French public policy perspective.

I am a believer in change peu a` peu (little by little) since drastic changes, including lots of changes made all at once, are often the sort of modifications that don't stick.

We women are so judged by the way we dress, and men are not. So style is part of developing your own brand.