The French smoke and drink and eat crap food just like everyone else.
They just don't mess about in my experience. If you are fat, you are fat. You're not body positive, you're not big boned, you don't have a slow metabolism, you're not in a food desert, you're not even obese, you're just fat. Sort it out.
They're not afraid of calling a spade a spade.
It really is that simple when you aren't surrounded by enablers.
There are absolutely places, at least here in the U.S., where food deserts really are a thing though.
I live in the south and there are places here where you can't buy fresh produce for miles. I don't live in such a place but I've been to these kinds of places.
You might have trouble if you literally only eat Cheetos and get no nutrients. You're more likely to become malnourished and sickly than obese that way.
Also, chest freezers exist, nothing is stopping you from driving and loading up the car/truck for a month or more. In the UK a 200 mile round trip would cost £30 or less in fuel, my understanding is that you Americans pay half of that.
The question ultimately comes down to whether you want it enough. I can already see the next gotcha being "what if you don't have a car" or something. Sure, if you are a waster then doing literally anything is hard, self fulfilling prophecy.
We're not talking about being healthy, we're talking about not being obese. You can absolutely lose weight eating awful shit every day; I'm doing it right now. In a fucked up way, it's easy. Look at calories in the drive-thru/on the wrapper and just stay below your target. That's what multiple people are saying in these comments -- they aren't necessarily being healthy, they are just not eating enough to become fat.