An Epidemic of Overweight Africans

NAIROBI, Kenya — As she walks through her poor neighborhood, Valentine Akinyi weathers the jeers hurled at her: “Elephant, elephant, elephant.” She has gotten used to the insults, she said, but still, it hurts.

“Who’s going to want to marry me?” she asked.

It used to be difficult in Kenya to find many people built like Ms. Akinyi, who, at 1.75 meters tall and 129 kilos, is obese.

In Africa, the world’s poorest continent, malnutrition is stubbornly widespread and millions of people are desperately hungry, with famine conditions looming in some wartorn countries.

But in many places, growing economies have led to growing waistlines. Obesity rates in sub-Saharan Africa are shooting up faster than in just about anywhere else in the world, causing a public health crisis that is catching Africa, and the world, by surprise.

In Burkina Faso, the prevalence of adult obesity in the past 36 years has jumped near- ly 1,400 percent. In Ghana, Togo, Ethiopia and Benin, it has increased by more than 500 percent. Eight of the 20 nations in the world with the fastest-rising rates of adult obesity are in Africa, according to a recent study at the University of Washington.

It is part of a seismic shift in Africa as rapid economic growth transforms every aspect of life, including the very shape of its people.

Many Africans are eating more junk food, much of it imported. They are also getting much less exercise, as millions of people abandon a more active farming life to crowd into cities, where they tend to be more sedentary. More affordable cars and a wave of motorbike imports also mean that fewer Africans walk to work.

Obesity may be a tough battle in Africa for other reasons. People who did not get enough nutrients when they were young are more prone to putting on weight when lots of food is available. And, health systems are geared toward combating other diseases.

Doctors say their public health systems have been so focused on AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and tropical fevers — historically, Africa’s big killers — that few resources are

ANDREW RENNEISEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Africans are getting less exercise as they trade farming for city life. A physical education class in Nairobi.