Body Size and Weight

How Are Body Size And Weight Viewed By Men And Women In Mauritania?

Obesity is so revered among Mauritania’s white Moor Arab population that the young girls are sometimes force-fed to obtain a weight the government has described as “life-threatening”. A generation ago, over a third of women in the country were force-fed as children – Mauritania is one of the few African countries where, on average, girls receive more food than boys. Now only around one in 10 girls are treated this way. The treatment has its roots in fat being seen as a sign of wealth – if a girl was thin she was considered poor, and would not be respected. Obesity is also seen as a sign a husband cares for his wife.
A quarter of the 1.5 million women in Mauritania — a barren, dune-enveloped country in northwest Africa more than twice the size of Texas — are obese, according to the World Health Organization. That’s lower than the 40 percent of American women who the WHO says are obese, but surprisingly high in a country that has not a single fast-food franchise.
“I make them eat lots of dates, lots and lots of couscous and other fattening food,” Fatematou, a voluminous woman in her sixties who runs a kind of “fat farm” in the northern desert town of Atar, told BBC World Service’s The World Today programme.
She said the girls could end up weighing between 60 to 100 kilograms, “with lots of layers of fat.” Fatematou said that it was rare for a girl to refuse to eat, and that if they did, she was helped by the child’s parents. “They punish the girls and in the end the girls eat,” she said. “We grab them and we force them to eat. If they cry a lot we leave them sometimes for a day or two and then we come back to start again. “They get used to it in the end.”
She argued that in the end the girls were grateful. “When they are small they don’t understand, but when they grow up they are fat and beautiful,” she said.
Mint was 4 when her family began to force her to drink 14 gallons of camel’s milk a day. When she vomited, she was beaten. If she refused to drink, her fingers were bent back until they touched her hand. Her stomach hurt so much she prayed all the animals in the world would die so that there would be no more milk.
By the time Mint was 10, she could no longer run. Unconcerned, her proud mother delighted in measuring the loops of fat hanging under her daughter’s arms. “My mother thinks she made me beautiful. But she made me sick,” says Mint, who suffers from weight-related illnesses including diabetes and heart disease.
Today, however, the view that a fat girl is more desirable is now becoming seen as old-fashioned. A study by the Mauritanian ministry of health has found that force-feeding is dying out. Now only 11% of young girls are force fed.
“That’s not how people think now,” Leila – a woman in the ancient desert town of Chinguetti, who herself was fattened as a child – told The World Today. “Traditionally a fat wife was a symbol of wealth. Now we’ve got another vision, another criteria for beauty. “Young people in Mauritania today, we’re not interested in being fat as a symbol of beauty. Today to be beautiful is to be natural, just to eat normally.”
Some men are also much less keen on having a fat wife – a reflection of changes in Mauritanian society.
“We’re fed up of fat women here,” said 19-year-old shop owner Yusuf.
“Some girls have asked me whether they should get fat or stay thin. I tell them if you want to find a man, a European or a Mauritanian, stay thin, it’s better for you. But some blokes still like them fat.”
And while there still are men who like their women big, Fatematou is on hand to fatten them up with her years of experience. I asked her if she ever felt cruel, beating and force feeding children?
“No! It’s not cruel to make girls fat!” she said. “Once they are fat and beautiful they can serve their men well, once they are fat they can be married.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/342990…