By: Gayathri (York University)
While living in a society that glorifies the Barbie-doll figure, it becomes hard to understand a society many miles away that glorifies a full figure.
In rural Mauritania, a country situated in Northern Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Senegal and Western Sahara, some young women are force fed large quantities of food and camel’s milk in an attempt to make them large as possible. This practice is known as “Leblouh”. Girls as young as five or six have become subject to this practice where they are required to eat two kilos of pounded millet, cups of butter and 20 liters of camel’s milk. Often, girls are sent away to “fattening farms”, their grandparent’s house or older aunts’ house during this process.
The reason larger women are more attractive in rural Mauritania is pure economical. In a nation that has a poverty line of 40%, those families who can afford to provide their daughters with such an abundance of food are seen as being wealthy and noble like. Thus, families who are able to “fatten” up their daughters, are viewed as a lucrative match. When women are force fed so young and fast, their bodies grow so quickly making them look older and easier to marry-off at a younger age. This is later carried on in life where a larger women means that she has a husband who can provide for her.
Today however, Leblouh is much less common as it once was, however, 10% of the female population is still subject to this process. As more and more women are aware of the physical consequences of force-feeding, especially when the foods used today is genetically modified, and more women are exposed to Western ideals of beauty, this process is becoming less popular. Young people are not interested in following these ideals anymore, and view beauty as being just normal. Men are also not as keen as before on requesting a larger wife, as they are more aware of the health consequences and dangers of intensive obesity.
Despite force-feeding women to make them larger, or suggesting women be skinner, the female is always subject to achieving an ideal.
Tags: Health & Beauty, Speak Out
