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4 Healthy Things Parisians Are Doing Right

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Evelyn Kramer
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Amherst chapter.

 

With Bastille Day coming up this Sunday, channel your inner Parisian by trying out some of these healthy French lifestyle staples.

Shop at farmer’s markets:  You can’t walk five minutes in Paris without stumbling on a farmer’s market– probably because they don’t do Netgrocer in France.  Studies show that people who shop at farmer’s markets eat a larger quantity and greater variety of fruits and veggies than do supermarket shoppers.  As an added perk, markets transform grocery shopping from a chore into an event, and shopping is supposed to be fun!

Order coffee with no frills: Americans love their extravagant coffee drinks.  When’s the last time you walked into a Starbucks and ordered a simple black coffee?  Manhattan alone has over 200 Starbucks, selling drinks so filled with syrup and whipped cream that you can’t be totally sure there’s actually any coffee in there.  Paris has only 39 Starbucks.  Parisians drink straight-up espresso without any cream and artificial flavor.  You’d have a hard time finding a café in Paris that has Splenda.  In fact, to find Splenda at all you’d probably have to go to a Starbucks.        

 

 

 

Walk everywhere: The average French woman walks three times as much as the average American woman.  No wonder they’re so skinny even though it’s almost impossible to find a gym in Paris.  The recommended amount of steps per day is 10,000, but American women average at only 4,912 steps a day!  Want to unleash your inner Parisian?  Make excuses to start walking! 

Drink an Occasional Glass of Wine at Lunch: While in America we love our lunches on the go, the traditional French lunch is a three-course meal paired with a good glass of wine.  Here in the U.S. we’re more likely to have a glass of wine with dinner, but why not switch it up once in a while and take some time in the middle of the day during a busy weekend to relax and really savor your midday meal instead of scarfing down a sandwich as fast as possible?  

 

Sources:

http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter/aboutkp/green/stories/2012/051612farmersmarket.html

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/01/08/blogger-vows-to-visit-every-starbucks-in-manhattan/

http://paris-eiffel-tower-news.com/en/lists-of-places-in-paris/list-of-starbucks-in-paris-regularly-updated/

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/the-pedometer-test-americans-take-fewer-steps/

http://frenchwomendontgetfat.com/content/emà-piedem-walk-way

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Evelyn is the Editor-in-Chief of the Amherst branch of Her Campus. She was a features intern at Seventeen Magazine during the summer of 2011 and a features intern at Glamour Magazine during the summer of 2013. She is a French and English major in the class of 2014 at Amherst College. She is also on Amherst's varsity squash team. She is an aspiring travel writer/novelist, and loves running, ice cream, and Jane Austen.