Why Is Africa Getting Fatter?

 Obesity is rapidly becoming a public health challenge on the African continent. According to the World Health Organization’s Global Infobase, women aged between 15-100 years living in The Seychelles, Lesotho, South Africa, Mauritania and Mauritius suffer the highest overweight/obesity prevalence rates with averages ranging between 56.8% to 73.8%.  Amongst African men of the same age, prevalence rates are lower with averages ranging between 41.3-63.8%.  Men living in The Seychelles, Mauritius, Cameroon, Botswana and South Africa exhibited the highest overweight/obesity rates.   Many African cultures believe that “big is beautiful.”  This however is a mindset that needs some tweaking because while “big is beautiful” over bigness may not be as attractive and has been demonstrated to increase an individuals risk for developing a myriad of health problems.

What is Overweight/Obese and why should we care?

Overweight is defined as  a Body Mass Index (BMI) ranging between 25-29.9 kg/m²  while obesity is defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) higher than 30 kg/m² (Calculate your BMI). While both overweight and obese states have  a negative impact on health, people who are obese tend to suffer from more health problems than their overweight counterparts.  Weight related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and some forms of cancer are sometimes referred to as “Diseases of Lifestyle”, because they are influenced by ones lifestyle, diet and environment.

Diseases of Lifestyle are detrimental for an individual, a country and the continent.   A person diagnosed with one or more health problems suffers more sick days than a healthier individual. These sick days directly translate into lost wages and decreased productivity at work. Consequently, the individual looses earning capacity while the company suffers decreased productivity. Further complicating the matter is the lack of adequate health care facilities to manage the diseases.  For decades, African governments have directed whatever few health resources they have towards the management of infectious diseases and undernutrition. As a result, the resources needed to focus on the prevention and management of the emerging overweight/obesity epidemic and its accompanying health concerns may not be readily available. Unfortunately, given the rate at which the African waistlines are rapidly expanding, by the time adequate attention is given to these matters, many countries in Africa will have suffered a significant decrease in productivity and post-independence gains.

How Did We Get Here?

Simply put,” We eat too much (of the wrong things) and exercise very little!”

•  As we have become more industrialized we have traded our high fiber, low fat, plant-based traditional diets for the westernized high sugar, low fiber, high fat diets loaded with nothing but cheap calories of poor nutritional value. We have given up the roots and tubers we proudly grew in our backyard gardens and farms and substituted them with store-bought, inferior refined imitations.
• We consume far  too much meat with too little fruits and vegetables, a sure prescription for a health disaster.
• We consume foods with empty calories (soft drinks, cookies, sweets, chips etc.) too regularly. A couple of decades ago, we reserved these foods for special occasions such as birthdays, weddings and Christmas. We snacked on local and wild fruits and vegetables. Today, we choose to snack on high calories foods that do not provide significant nutrition.  A South African study published in the Journal of Family Ecology and Consumer Sciences concluded that 93% of participating students in Grades 4-7 consumed an average of 730 ml of soft drinks daily. YIKES, that is almost a liter of nothing but sugar calories! This could easily translate to an average of 300 calories per day and contribute to a 30 pound weight gain in a year (~13.5 kg).
• We eat out more often and accompany the sugary drinks with fatty, refined foods from take-away (fast food) institutions.
• We eat large portions but  no longer engage in as much physical activity as much as we did a few decades ago.  Our streets are jam-packed with vehicles to literally transport us from one doorstep to the next.  Together with our children we sit in front of computers and television sets for hours upon end. Some of our children cannot recite the street games we played until dusk because they are too busy sitting in the house mastering the latest video games.  All the excess calories that we are getting from our highly refined, high fat take aways and washing down with liquid sugar (soft drinks) are simply not being equaled with exercise causing us to get fatter and fatter.

Here is a quick comparison of our old habits and the new lifestyle that has led to our expanding waistlines.

  We want to hear from you…what would you add to the list? Why in your opinion are Africans getting fatter?

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