A Recipe for Good Health

Despite a fondness for goose-liver pate, chocolate mousse and puffy pastries, the French have the lowest body weight per capita in the Western world. According to best-selling author and diet guru Michel Montignac, this proves that to eat well is to eat healthily. His latest book, "The Montignac Diet: Eat for Pleasure--Stay Slim Forever," will be released in 12 countries in February. Montignac spoke by phone from his country home near Geneva with NEWSWEEK's Eric Pape. Excerpts:

PAPE: What's your dieting philosophy?

MONTIGNAC: Weight gain comes from an excessive secretion of insulin. Understanding this means breaking with old ideas. Focusing on calories is a waste of time, as countless studies show. Since 1960, the number of calories consumed has fallen 25 to 35 percent and yet obesity rates have increased. A new study on France shows that between 1995 and 2003, the French consumed 6 percent fewer calories, but obesity increased 31 percent.

Why isn't exercise the answer?

People have tripled or quadrupled their sports activities since 1960. And in physical professions--plumbers, laborers and others--people are fattest, and the people who work in offices tend to be thinnest. The difference between them is how they eat. In the United States, the fatter you are, the poorer you tend to be. People don't get fat because they eat too much but because they eat badly. The best way to get thin isn't to eat less or to work out more, it is to eat better. If you choose food as I recommend, you can eat normally, be sated and lose weight. People always ask what quantities they should eat. I tell them that the quantity doesn't matter.

Why is French food healthy?