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Fat, apparently, is in the eye of the beholder. If the beholder lives in the African nation of Mauritania, he’s much more likely to believe that big is beautiful. In fact, fat women are so revered there that only a generation ago, a third of girls were force-fed, making it one of the few African countries where girls received more food than boys.
These days, the practice is in decline, but even now 1 in 10 girls are treated this way. Wife-fattening has its roots in the idea that fat equals wealthy, and skinny equals poor — and as such, is undesirable. “Fat farms” are still operated in rural parts of the country, which force girls to eat voluminous amounts of food and punish them if they resist. One professional fattener defended her business, saying “When they are small they don’t understand, but when they grow up they are fat and beautiful. They are proud and show off their good size to make men dribble. Don’t you think that’s good?”
However, not all Mauritanian men agree as to what a “good size” is anymore. “We’re fed up of fat women here,” said 19-year-old shop owner Yusuf. “Always fat women! Now we want thin women.” (Whatever you want, guys. Wasn’t this whole “fat” thing your idea in the first place?)
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it’s interesting that the bbc uncritically reports the practice of force-feeding 7-year-old girls as “wife” fattening. do girls marry at age seven in britain, or would this perhaps be better described as child fattening, girl fattening, woman fattening, or (imho) child abuse?
posted by jami on 12-27-2006 at 12:00 am
I’m a large woman living in North America. I’m so tired of being discriminated against everywhere from clothing manufacturers to job interviews! Then there is the dicotomy of men who love me and my body but are ashamed to be seen with a fat woman. So many men are in the closet about lusting for large women, it’s pitiful for us all.
I love to cook and travel and eat culinary ethnic delights. I have a family history of obesity. My mother took me to a diet doctor when I was eleven at which time I was put on diet pills and near starvation diets until I left home at 18. Once away, I ate what I desired and naturally gained weight.
While I have never thought that “feeding” was healthy, I certainly think that starving isn’t. Let people be as they are. Accept everyone for who they are. I would love to live in a country where men appreciated large women, clothing was readily available for us and politics were anti-discriminatory!
posted by susan on 12-31-2006 at 6:07 pm
you go girl!!! I happen to like big girls,I find the rolls very exotic!
I’m in the process of fatting my girl friend and she is loving it! she spends her weekends in bed and i just feed her,she is up too 260lbs and looks awsum! best of luck to you
posted by bob on 12-23-2007 at 11:02 am
I am a woman who spent her first 25 years in Mauritania, and I say it is a deeper, more complex issue than what is presented in articles. I was fattened as a young child and teen and am now an obese adult, but it’s still engrained in me to deliberately overeat, to stuff myself. My girlfriends all feel the same way.I cannot imagine myself losing weight in the same way Western girls cannot dream of possibly wanting to gain 30 more pounds.
posted by Hawa on 4-4-2008 at 10:51 am