Guiliano, Mireille 1946–

PERSONAL: Name is pronounced "meer-ray julie-ah-no"; born April 14, 1946, in France; naturalized U.S. citizen; married Edward Guiliano (president and CEO of New York Institute of Technology), 1976. Education: Undergraduate degree from Sorbonne, University of Paris; Institut Supérieur d'Interprétariat et de Traduction, master's degree.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Alfred A. Knopf, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

CAREER: Businessperson, spokesperson, and writer. House of Champagne Veuve Clicquot, spokesperson; Clicquot, Inc., cofounder, 1984, then president and CEO. Worked as a translator for United Nations. Also works with various groups promoting business opportunities and education for women. Has appeared on television programs, including Oprah, The Today Show, The Early Show, and Dateline. James Beard Foundation Board, trustee. Member, Committee of 200.

WRITINGS:

French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure (nonfiction), Knopf (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to periodicals, including Gourmet, Town & Country, and Quarterly Review of Wines.

French Women Don't Get Fat has been translated into thirty languages, including German, Dutch, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Finnish, Swedish, Portuguese, Croatian, and Japanese.

ADAPTATIONS: French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure was adapted as an audio book, Random House Audio, 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Mireille Guiliano is a native of France who lives in the United States and has worked for many years in the wine, spirits, and luxury-goods industries. Her book French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure is a best-selling diet and exercise book based on her experience with French cuisine and lifestyle. Writing on her home page, Guiliano noted that she wrote the book "in response to years of being asked how do you eat and drink what you do, enjoy it so much but never get fat?" The author went on to say, "I wrote it, though, to share and give back: to help people eat for pleasure and not diet. It has been called the ultimate non-diet book, and I like that because diet books don't work. If they did, no one would be fat." The author also added that "unbalanced" diets often "offend my French soul."

French Women Don't Get Fat expresses Guiliano's philosophy on eating and enjoying life sensibly to prevent weight gain, and it is also partly a memoir of the author's life. In the book, she looks back on her own early weight problem; she gained thirty pounds at age nineteen when she came to America as an exchange student and started eating like other Americans. On a visit to her French family physician, Guiliano was guided back to eating in moderation rather than eliminating all high-calorie foods. Guiliano refers to her doctor as "Dr. Miracle" and presents the doctor's advice and philosophy on eating well yet staying trim. Despite the "anti-diet" tone of the book, the author does offer specific steps for losing weight and keeping the pounds off. She first advises readers to keep an inventory of what is eaten for three weeks and then for the next three months to focus on reforming eating habits. Specific weight-loss tricks include an initial weekend of eating only leek broth, adding yogurt to the diet, and drinking more water. Although the author warns against overindulging in high-calorie foods such as bagels and chocolate and high-calorie drinks such as juice and liquor, she maintains that eating these and other foods in controlled portions with planned meals is fine. In addition to including numerous recipes, the author also advocates more walking and other non-gym approaches to exercise.

Writing in the Weekly Standard, Rachel DiCarlo noted that "overall it's a fun book with plenty of practical wisdom." A Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter contributor pointed out that almost all of Guiliano's advice has been set forth before but added "somehow, though, the … French champagne-company executive communicates all this mostly sensible advice with a certain je ne sais quoi that's the stuff of bestsellers." In a review in Library Journal, Florence Scarinci suggested that the book would be "a unique addition to health and nutrition collections." A Publishers Weekly contributor remarked that Guiliano's "book … is a stirring reminder of the importance of joie de vivre." Mark Knoblauch claimed in Booklist that the author presents "a commonsense diet based on both restraint and simple exercise."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Guiliano, Mireille, French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure (nonfiction), Knopf (New York, NY), 2005.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 2004, Mark Knoblauch, review of French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure, p. 626.

Business Week, April 25, 2005, Susan Berfield, "Fat Times for a French Woman; The Skinny on How Diet Author Mireille Guiliano Is Milking Her Newfound Fame," p. 113.

Library Journal, November 1, 2004, Florence Scarinci, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 112.

New Statesman, January 17, 2005, Michele Roberts, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 53.

Newsweek International, January 24, 2005, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 57.

People, January 24, 2005, Kim Hubbard and Debbie Seaman, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 147.

Publishers Weekly, November 22, 2004, Lynn Andriani, "C'est si bon," interview with Mireille Guiliano, p. 46; November 22, 2004, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 46; January 17, 2005, Charlotte Abbott, "Knopf Tries to Keep Up with French Diet," p. 15; February 7, 2005, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 35.

Town & Country, February 2005, Chantal M. McLaughlin, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 108.

Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter, May 2005, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 6.

Weekly Standard, March 14, 2005, Rachel DiCarlo, review of French Women Don't Get Fat, p. 43.

ONLINE

Mireille Guiliano Home Page, http://www.mireilleguiliano.com (June 29, 2005).

MostlyFiction.com, http://mostlyfiction.com/ (March 27, 2005), Jan Kraus, review of French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure.