In Mauritania, as in the rest of the world, the glacier-like inevitability of western culture and modern thought is bulldozing through ancient customs. For thousands of years, Mauritanian girls as young as seven have been force-fed huge quantities of dates, milk, and couscous. The village elders believe (correctly, I might add) that obese girls will go through puberty earlier, and thus become marriageable that much sooner.
The goal is to make them as fat as possible, cripplingly obese in fact, as fat wives are a matter of prestige to their husbands.
As in female genital mutilation, the feeding is generally carried out by female relatives, motivated by tradition and, I have often thought, spiteful sadism at having gone through the same ordeal. Sometimes the girls are sent off to professional fatteners.
Feeders will beg, entice, and guilt-trip their little wards to eat,
eventually turning to threats and violence. They use two sticks toclamp the girls’ fingers, stemming their urge to vomit by “distracting”
them with more demanding pain.
The custom has mostly died off, having only a few holdouts in remoteregions where government health campaigns could not reach. In thecities, young men say they are fed up with all the fat women, and thatthe truly chic just eat normally and stay svelte.
But this story has a happy ending, as America finally knows where toship our endless supply of obese daughters, securing them places ofhonor at the sides of high-ranking Mauritanian chieftans.
Mauritania's 'wife-fattening' farm [BBC]
In pictures: Force Fed [BBC]
