I was reading this story yesterday in the NY Times about how young women are force-fed in Mauritania so they can be fatter and therefore more attractive.
Quote: ...the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the mirror opposite of the West on questions of women’s weight. To men here, fat is sexy. And in this patriarchal region, many Mauritanian women do everything possible — and have everything possible done to them — to put on pounds.
The story goes on to detail a number of horror stories about young girls being made sick by drinking excessive amounts of fatty milk and how this is bad for women’s hearts and cholesterol levels etc.
Quote: Girls as young as 5 and as old as 19 had to drink up to five gallons of fat-rich camel’s or cow’s milk daily, aiming for silvery stretch marks on their upper arms. If a girl refused or vomited, the village weight-gain specialist might squeeze her foot between sticks, pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger backward or force her to drink her own vomit. In extreme cases, girls died.
The article led me to believe that women in Mauritania must be the fattest in the world.
Then I read this: “A 2001 Mauritanian survey that documented overfeeding estimated that two in five women were overweight — not high by American standards, where government surveys show nearly three in five women are overweight — ….”
Not high by American standards!!
So they are almost killing these young woman and still they aren’t as fat as North American women. That’s astounding. What kind of diets are we feeding ourselves here? Why bother with the goat’s milk. Just feed them our standard fast food and junk food diets and they’ll all be looking good in no time.
I’ve got to cut down on the chips.
1 comment:
I have a woman in my class from mauritania who is a mother of 4 and is pretty skinny by anyone's standards
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