Obesity in women strongly tied to SA cultural beliefs
SOUTH African women are fuller figured – and their men like it.
Health experts say African cultural beliefs that favour overweight women and associate fat with wealth are still among the many reasons for the high number of obese women compared with men in the country.
The World Health Statistics 2015 released by the World Health Organisation this month show that 37.3% of women are obese, and 15.7% of men.
“Some African men find obese women more attractive than thin ones, and would like their own wife to be obese, to show that he cares well for her, that she is not sick and is able to produce children,” North West University nutrition professor Salome Kruger said.
Human Sciences Research Council research showed that obesity among black women, the group with the highest risk, was attributed to social meanings that attached wellbeing to weight gain, lack of affordable healthy food choices and lack of physical activity in urban areas.
Kruger said limited data on obesity in the white South African population showed there were more obese men than women. The same pattern is present in European and American white populations.
Chronic Disease Initiative for Africa professor Krisela Steyn said over centuries people of African descent frequently came from positions of scarcity. Therefore if food was available, it was finished.
“And very large portions seem to be the accepted practice, as in the United States,” she said.
Steyn said there was a perception that “large people” did not have Aids, therefore weight loss could be seen as due to Aids.
Association for Dietetics in SA spokeswoman Catherine Pereira said research showed that women who were nutritionally deprived as children were significantly more likely to be obese as adults, while men who were deprived as children did not face as great a risk.