Traditions in Other Countries

[pete]

BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/outlook/news/story/2007/07/070716_happinessstory_nigeria.shtml)



The fattening rooms of Calabar

Morris Eyo Edem and his wife Happiness spoke to Outlook reporter Sam Olukoya about the fattening regime in Calabar which enabled Happiness to put on the pounds before her marriage seven years ago.

Happiness said that she spent about 6 months in the fattening centre, and that after eating 8 meals a day, her body shape had changed completely - to the delight of her husband, who, as a prince, requires a particularly large wife.


That link was sent to me by Nigeria guy at work. Apparently common (less so in recent years due to health education) in the eastern part of the country. Obesity obviously not just a Western issue. Strange world.

[GavinZac]

Good weight is considered a sign of health, wealth and fertility, all things befitting a prince's wife.

Over here the emphasis is on skinny as we've spent centuries idolising innocence and youth because of the church's preaching of chastity and young marriange, to the point where a woman with the body of a ten year old boy can be idolised as perfection.

[noby]

Over here they put on the weight after the marriage /runs for cover/.

But seriously, as GZ says, the western world has a big emphasis on being skinny, which perhaps is just as unhealthy.