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France has by far the highest proportion of clinically underweight women in Europe, but only half of them think they are too thin, according to a new study.
In other European countries the opposite is true: the number of women in Britain, Spain and Portugal, for example, who see themselves as seriously skinny easily outstrips the number who actually are.
"This shows that what people consider an ideal weight in France is lower than in other countries," said the study's author Thibaut de Saint Pol, a researcher at France's National Institute of Demographic studies, which published the study on Wednesday.
"If a French person who feels fat were to go to the United States," - which has much higher rate of obesity - "he probably wouldn't feel fat anymore," he said.
The study also reveals a big gap, both objective and subjective, between sexes.
In western Europe, the mean weight of men in every country except France and The Netherlands tips the scales into the "overweight" category, according to World Health Organization (WHO) standards.
By contrast, in only three nations do women join the men in crossing that line: Britain, Greece and Portugal. And only among the Dutch does one find more overweight women than men.
France is the one country in which both sexes are solidly in the "normal" weight bracket, and the only one in which more than five percent of women are officially "underweight".
The universal standard introduced by the WHO for assessing weight is the Body-Mass Index (BMI): one's weight in kilograms divided by the square of one's height in meters.
A BMI of 25-to-30 indicates being overweight, while above 30 means one is obese. The range of normal weight is 18.5-to-24.9.
The proportion of overly thin women in France has long been the highest in Europe, but has shrunk from 8.5 percent in 1981, to 7.8 percent in 1992, to 6.7 percent in 2003, according to once-a-decade national surveys.
In that same period, the proportion of underweight French men held steady at just under two percent.
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(Agencies)
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一項最新研究顯示，法國體重不達標的女性比例一直居歐洲之首，但只有一半的女性認為自己過瘦。
而在歐洲其它國家情況卻恰好相反：比如在英國、西班牙和葡萄牙，認為自己過瘦的女性比實際上很瘦的人還要多。
法國人口研究所研究員、研究負責人Thibaut de Saint Pol說：“這表明法國人心目中理想的體重標準低于其它國家”。該研究于上周三公布。
他說：“如果一個覺得自己胖的法國人去肥胖率高很多的美國，也許他就不會覺得自己胖了。”
該研究還從主觀和客觀方面揭示了男女在體重問題上的巨大差異。
根據世界衛生組織標準，在西歐，除法國和荷蘭外，每個國家男性的平均體重均為“超標”。
相反，只有三個國家的女性平均體重超標，分別是英國、希臘和葡萄牙。而且只有荷蘭體重超標的女性數量多于男性。
法國是唯一一個男女體重都在“正常”范圍內的國家，而且是唯一一個有超過5%的女性體重未達官方標準的國家。
世界衛生組織衡量體重的統一標準為“體重指數”，即用一個人的體重（公斤）除以其身高（米）的平方。
體重指數在25至30之間的人為超重，超過30為肥胖。正常體重指數在18.5至24.9之間。
據一項十年開展一次的全國調查表明，法國過瘦女性的比例一直居歐洲之首，但已從1981年的8.5%降至1992年的7.8%，2003年進一步降至6.7%。
在此期間，法國體重不達標的男性比例一直維持在2%以下。
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（英語點津姍姍編輯）
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