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| big is beautiful |
To many black women, being overweight is desirable, astounding wouldn’t you say? This belief is now worsened by the idea that being thin can be equated with HIV/ AIDS virus infection. A qualitative study by Mvo et al. (1999) has shown that large body size in the African community in South Africa was perceived to reflect wealth and happiness; it is believed that if a woman is obese or overweight, the body size reflected on a husband’s ability to care for his wife and family. A man with a pot belly is considered wealthy (to a certain extent that they are given the name “Mr BEE”), these incorrect perceptions of body weight are outrageous and have all sorts of troubling implications for rapid increase in weight-related diseases.
All over the world, people go to incredible lengths to match up to the standards of beauty their culture endorses. When a culture changes, its standards of beauty often change with it. So to a certain extent, beauty is ‘democratic’, decided by whatever the people happen to prefer. So this brings me to ask the question “has obesity become a norm among the black community?
One of the major challenges with regard to the management and prevention of obesity in South Africa is the cultural variation in the perception of and preference for bigger body sizes, lack of education on obesity is another thing we need to look into among African communities.
Big is beautiful SHAME, but the whole mis-perception of if you are a bit bigger you can afford to maintain your family is outrageous! People are different, if we were'nt this thing that we call life would be quite monotinous don't you think? Some become bigger with age and some because of Genetic Inheritance. And as for those who claim that being thin can be equated with HIV/ AIDS virus infection prove the misunderstanding of the virus. Clearly government is waisting millions, considering how much funding is government spending to educate citizens about the virus. MokD
ReplyDeletePerceptions are blinding our ever-so-growing society and clouding their judgment on serious issues ,reinforcement from the government would really help, education plays a huge role now more than ever.
DeleteNow that's just South Africans for you. When you have a thicker body, you're perceived as being fat and not taking care of your health. Now if you lose the weight then you'll be perceived as being sick and dying of AIDS. Why do we as people like to judge without knowing the full story?
ReplyDeleteI guess that’s just how the human mind is (so complex), if anything, I think we need to address this matter and eliminate all these misleading perceptions because they are posing serious implications on a very delicate issue.
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