Having a slender slim body is what makes a woman beautiful. Perhaps
that would be the case in many parts of the world. Girls (including me), have this
constant worry that if you eat too much, you’ll gain more weight, you’ll become
fatter, and that’s not good. Apart from that quite distorted perception of slim or thin is beautiful, however, I think it’s something just right to watch
what you eat, for health purpose. Being fat may make you get tired so easily,
you can’t walk or move lots without feeling extremely exhausted, but, at the same
time, I’m against ill dieting as well. No rice at all, calculating calories
every time you wish to munch on any food, ah wait, that’s way too much! If your BMI (Body Mass Index) is within a normal range, you actually have that healthy weight, so it's perfectly fine! Let go of that burdening supermodel's body-type aim. Just eat normally, stay healthy, and avoid obesity J
Enough with my nutritionist rambles. Here is another beauty story. It's just not easy to achieve that beauty standard effortlessly. It's somewhat amazing (yet horrifying) to see people wish to do just anything to be beautiful. In Mauritania that lies between Western Sahara and Senegal, big women (obese ones I'd say) are traditionally deemed as more beautiful and desirable. In order to find a husband, many of the women are being pushed to
dangerous lengths to gain weight from being force fed to taking pills that are
not fit for human consumption. Having a fat wife is desirable and is a sign of
wealth and prestige in the country where food is in short supply. The girls are
fattened up from the age of eight by their families in a practice referred
to as 'gavage' - a French word that means force feeding and is used to describe
the fattening of geese to make ‘foie gras’ (a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose
that has been specially fattened).
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| An overweight woman of Mauritania Photo by BBC |
Once they reach a marriageable age, girls are sent to 'fat camps' in the
desert where they are fed 15,000 calories a day. For breakfast, the girls
have breadcrumbs soaked in olive oil washed down with camel's milk. They then
have frequent meals throughout the day of goat's meat, bread, figs and couscous,
all with more camel milk to drink. Morton found that many refer to the
over-eating as torture and parents have been known to crush their
daughters' toes with pincers if they resist.
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| Mauritanian girls drink lots of camel's milk to gain weight Photo by Corbis |
However, since this fattening process makes them feel sick and takes much time,
the girls have also found another way to gain weight - taking pills. One local woman told Morton, a U.S journalist: 'Medication is the modern
form of gavage. Women use steroids and they are taking pills made from birds.
These pills are not meant to be used by humans. The women said the animal growth hormones end up giving the women who take
them a disproportionate body shape with a big stomach, face and breasts but
thin arms and legs. She said: 'The person now looks more like a seal than a human being. Women
can't have children because of this type of gavage. The big problem is this
often leads to heart failure, repeated heart attacks, rare are the ones who
escape. There are consequences - diseases, malformations and insanity.
What a suffering to be beautiful!
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| It is said that the 'big women' tradition has now become old-fashioned in the region Photo by BBC |
Here I include a video for you guys to watch:
