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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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 Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:47 pm Post subject: Why Dutch women don't get depressed |
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AMSTERDAM: French women, says a recent bestseller, don't get fat. Japanese women, says another, don't get old or fat. But their sisters in the Netherlands may have one up on both of them.
That is because Dutch women, according to a book just released in the Netherlands, don't get depressed.
After scores of interviews with historians, psychologists, fashion designers, image-profilers, personal shoppers, magazine editors and ordinary Dutch women, Ellen de Bruin, a Dutch psychologist and journalist, throws down the gauntlet. In a title billed as the Dutch woman's answer to the French and Japanese, she argues that women in the Netherlands are a whole lot happier than their counterparts in most parts of the world.
"It has to do with personal freedom," said de Bruin, whose work, sure enough, is titled "Dutch Women Don't Get Depressed." "Personal choice is key: in the Netherlands people are free to choose their life partners, their religion, their sexuality, we are free to use soft drugs here, we can pretty much say anything we like. The Netherlands is a very free country."
While the book clearly parodies its French and Japanese rivals, it is underpinned by serious research. And its author does seem to have a point. While Dutch women do sometimes get depressed, just as French women do sometimes get fat, the Dutch as a nation emerge close to the top of the world happiness rankings established by Ruut Veenhoven, professor of social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 signals greatest life satisfaction, the Dutch score 7.5 - beating 6.5 for the French and 6.2 for the Japanese. They also defeat Americans with 6.4, the British with 7.1, and the Italians and Spanish who each total 6.9. |
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/06/news/happy.php |
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Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:49 pm Post subject: |
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Personal freedom is grand!
I wonder how women in the Middle East scored.  |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:19 pm Post subject: |
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| It also makes Dutch women, really really hot. There are not huge number of "obese" dutch women (though they do exist). But most dutch women who haven't had kids seem to carry the fat in "all the right places" anyways. |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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They are hot- I love the fact that they're so well built-in an attractive way.
I wonder how Korean women scored? They do have so much control over their lives after all.  |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Alias wrote: |
Personal freedom is grand!
I wonder how women in the Middle East scored. |
Middleeastophobe |
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endo
Joined: 14 Mar 2004
Location: Seoul...my home
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| Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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| An open-monded woman who smokes herb? |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:35 am Post subject: |
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Most Dutch people don't smoke herb. Ask them about it.
But bicycle riding, free-spirited, stoned girls? Yes, please. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2007 10:13 am Post subject: |
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| It is interesting that the Spaniards and Italians did better than the French, and so did the British... No one seemed to look at that in the thread.... |
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