The body practice of dieting is very common in our culture. Susan Bordo claims that females use this to attract men, and to become desirable to them. Because of our culture, we believe that in order to be desirable to the opposite sex we must have our bodies in tip-top shape. To some, being fat is repulsive because fat bodies are not the desirable "docile body." Women in our culture assume that being thin is desirable to men everywhere; however, this is not the case in Mauritania. Mothers force feed milk laced with butter, couscous, millet and other fattening products to their daughters. They start this practice young, some are only between the ages of 4 to 7 before their mothers begin to make them fat and sexually desirable for marriage. If the daughters refuse to eat or if they vomit from too much intake they are usually physically hurt. In this culture being fat is so desirable for marriage that in one article a man talks about divorcing his wife if she loses weight because he will no longer find her attractive if she falls below 200 pounds. In this culture, fat is desirable because it signifies that the woman is healthy. Food is scarce in this area of the world, so if the woman is obese it shows that she is able to have enough food and that she is healthy and able to gain weight.
The Mauritanian government has tried to put a stop to this body practice by promoting a campaign against it. The government is getting its inspiration from countries where thin is in and obesity is out. They are trying to ban song lyrics that glamorize being overweight and replace them with lyrics of liking women who are thin. They have even started showing soap operas and other TV shows where the desirable, beautiful women are thin. Sound familiar? They are using our culture of what is beautiful and trying to make it beautiful for women there too. Our "thin" culture is so apparent that other countries are starting to use it as an example for their cultures too. I think that things need to change, there needs to be a happy medium for what is sexy and for what is not. The unhealthy goals of being either underweight or overweight are not healthy lifestyles and it is hard to be happy when you are constantly stuck under the impression that your man will leave you if you don't fit his cultured way of viewing whats hot and whats not.
Caitlyn Beck
This is so interesting! It's weird how much of an influence some cultures can have on other cultures. The part I love most about this post is that it shows how easily something we can think is disgusting or looked at in a bad light (being fat/overweight) can have such a different meaning a world away. I think that it is really important to always keep in mind why we are doing the things we are doing in our daily body practices and whether it truly makes us happy or it only makes us happy because society tells us it is. It may be that society will always be an influence on our happiness and satisfaction whether it is going with the crowd or against it.
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