what is it like to be forced to fatten up

Force-feeding of girls for union

Leblouh (Arabic: البلوح, romanized: lə-blūḥ ) is the exercise of force-feeding girls from every bit immature as 5 to nineteen, in countries where obesity was traditionally regarded as desirable.^{[i] [2] [iii]} Especially prevalent in rural areas and having its roots in Tuareg^[iv] tradition, leblouh is practiced to increase chances of marriage in a society where loftier body book used to exist a sign of wealth. The practice is being washed in several African countries, such as Mauritania,^{[5] [half dozen] [7] [8] [nine] [10] [11]} Niger,^[12] Republic of uganda,^{[thirteen] [14]} Sudan,^[15] Tunisia^[12] (specifically Jewish people),^[16] Nigeria,^{[17] [xviii] [19] [20]} Kenya and Due south Africa.^[21] The synonym gavage comes from the French term for the force-feeding of geese to produce foie gras.

The practice goes back to the 11th century, and has been reported to have made a significant comeback in Mauritania after a military junta took over the country in 2008.^[22] The younger generations of males in Mauritania at present see fattening negatively.^[23]

Older women called "fatteners" forcefulness the young girls to consume enormous quantities of food and liquid,^[22] inflicting hurting on them if they do not swallow and drink. One mode of inflicting pain is to compression a limb between two sticks. A six-year-old might typically be forced to potable 20 litres (iv.iv imp gal; 5.3 US gal) of camel's milk, and eat two kilos of pounded millet mixed with two cups of butter, every twenty-four hours. Although the practice is abusive, mothers claim in that location is no other style to secure a good future for their children.^{[22] [23]}

A similar practice is referred to in a folktale entitled "The Tortoise with a Pretty Girl", collected in Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria (1910). The folklorist who wrote downwards the story explained the treatment of the "pretty daughter": "The fatting house is a room where a girl is kept for some weeks before her union. She is given enough of nutrient, and made equally fat as possible, as fatness is looked upon every bit a great dazzler by the Efik people and Bahumono ."^[24]

• 

  Tunisian Jewish adult female, about 1900.

• 

  Jewish woman from Garrigues on Djerba island.

• 

  Tunisian Jewish woman of the 1910s.

• 

  Jewish women in Tunisia. About 1910.

Leblouh in Mauritania [edit]

Leblouh (often referred to using the French word gavage) in Islamic republic of mauritania is quite unique and involves an often months long process during which Mauritanian girls are forced to swallow gallons of milk, couscous, peanut oil, and cups of pure creature fat. An often cited statistic is that Mauritanian girls undergoing the procedure of Leblouh consume four times the amount of calories equally an adult male body-builder who consumes on boilerplate iv,000 calories daily. During these months the child or immature girl being fattened consumes on average 14,000 to 16,000 calories daily, while the recommended diet for a healthy 12-year one-time girl includes only i,500 calories.^[25] Immature girls are ofttimes fattened from around the age of half dozen or vii years of age and are coerced using techniques which cause varying degrees of mental and physical anguish. If the young girls refuse to consume the on average xx liters of milk a day that they are given, they are subjected to "toe squeezing" which involves the crushing of the toes using a contraption made of sticks, pinched on the skin, or even hit.^[26] Sources state that the most common reason for families investing in Leblouh for their young daughter is to ensure her financial security and good marriage prospects. At that place does seem to be some empirical support for this belief. Before adjusting for BMI, gavaged women have almost 34% higher odds of ever having been married.^[27] Men in Mauritania often adopt heavier brides who they believe will bear healthy children. These prospective grooms are willing to pay significant money purely for the tea ceremony and then are expected to pay an even heftier helpmate price. Following the wedding, the hubby is expected to continuously provide gifts along with the daily cloth items that their wife might need. Additionally, when women cantankerous the marital threshold, they can be seen every bit a source of expenditure that is ruining the family unit of measurement.^[28] This is why Mauritanians, particularly those that are poor, want to marry their daughters off equally young as possible, to the wealthiest man possible. Gavage is much more common in the poorer and more resource deficient regions of Mauritania. ^[27] These regions include the rural Saharan regions of the country, the rural areas along the Sengal River in the Sahelian region, along with the urban areas forth the coast. In these regions, families are much more motivated to forcefulness-feed their daughters in the effort to draw wealthy suitors. It does not announced withal, that gavaged women have greater wealth or access to resources than their non-gavaged counterparts.

The practice of fattening girls in Mauritania has been linked to incredibly harmful physical and psychological consequences. Leblouh has been correlated with significant reductions in movement and the development of cardiovascular diseases.^[29] The use of pills, in the form of steroids, to cause weight gain have been widely reported throughout the country.^[xxx] The increasing frequency of droughts has also caused a shortage of cows, camels, produce, and grain used to feed families and/or fatten girls. Every bit a event, many families accept been forced to sell their livestock considering they can not afford to feed themselves. Many women and young girls have now turned to black marketplace cattle and incredibly dangerous bird steroids to proceeds weight.^[25] The increasing levels of impoverishment in some areas of the country have also led some women and girls to discover that antihistamines, traditionally used to care for hay fever, take appetite inducing qualities. While these products are still dangerous they are much more accessible and can be purchased over-the-counter. Women who have undergone Leblouh are also at a consistently higher risk of initiating sex activity earlier and having children earlier than their counterparts who were not gavaged.^[27] Gavage may also put women at serious run a risk for poor childbirth outcomes, HIV/AIDS, and other health problems, in a higher place and beyond the touch of BMI that itself constitutes a physical health chance. Also, there seems to be a strong correlation between gavage and early on pregnancy as early pregnancy is more common amid poor immature women.^[31]

Origins of leblouh and revival [edit]

It is difficult to precisely pinpoint the origins of force-feeding in Mauritania. However, some historians believe that the practice is centuries old and dates back to a fourth dimension when most Mauritanians (white Mauritanians, Arabs, and Berbers) were nomads.^[32] In this nomadic lodge, obesity was seen as a sign of beauty in women and the wives of rich men would frequently not work and sit in tents while Black slaves did the hard labor that the desert required. Mauritania is a gild that fifty-fifty today is governed by two distinct populations: the light-skinned Moors and the night-skinned Africans whose roots are largely sub-Saharan.^[33] Mauritanians who identify as Arabs nonetheless have the highest rates of Leblouh in the country when compared to the nations minority groups. ^[25]

The 21st century however has been a time for the revival of Leblouh in Mauritania, too as a time for reform. In 2005, the head of President Ould Taya's presidential baby-sit, Mohamed Ould Ely Vall led a coup with the promise of free and off-white elections in 2006. In 2006 and 2007, autonomous, gratuitous and transparent elections occurred for the showtime time in Mauritania.^[34] After simply ii years of republic and a period of serious institutional crunch with several changes to government and the presentation of a movement of censorship by a group of deputies, General Abdel Aziz seized power by force subsequently a new political insurrection in 2008. This insurrection occurred in August 2008, and the democratic regime was later replaced with a military junta that favored what they called "a return to tradition." An ballot in July 2009 allowed the military junta to maintain control of the authorities. After this election a slew of legislation was enacted focusing on reinstating traditional rules into police, despite claims of massive vote-rigging. Mint Ely, a women's rights campaigner, describes: "We had a Ministry building of Women's Affairs. ... We had female diplomats and governors. The military set up us back by decades, sending usa back to our traditional roles. We no longer even take a ministry to talk to."

Government figures from prior to the 2008 coup signal that gavage occurred in fifty-60 percent of the women in rural areas and twenty-30 pct of the women in urban areas. After the coup, professional force-feeders estimate that approximately lxxx pct of women nation-wide have undergone some form of Leblouh.^[25]

Attitudes towards leblouh in Mauritania and abroad [edit]

Data from the Islamic republic of mauritania 2000–2001 DHS was used to determine the attitudes of men and women in regards to the continuation of Female Genital Mutilation and gavage.^[thirty] The analysis found that the bulk of both female and male person respondents favored the continuation of the practice (64% and 70%, respectively). It besides establish that almost a quarter (23%) of women reported beingness strength fed as a child and 32% of women and 29% of men approved the continuation of the practice. While the prevalence of gavage is conspicuously quite loftier, the harming of the genital organs of any child (including harm resulting from the exercise of gavage and FGM) is illegal nether the Mauritanian kid protection penal lawmaking; penalties range from ane–3 years imprisonment and heavy fines. The law, however, does non specifically mention FGM or gavage as illicit practices that harm young children.

Attitudes in Islamic republic of mauritania do seem to be changing withal with global influences, such as Western fashions, Nigerian pop music, and French Television altering the perceptions of body size and women'due south dazzler.^[25] Lebanese music is incredibly popular throughout the Middle East and Mauritanian men accept began to compare Mauritanian women to pop Lebanese singers, showing that attitudes may exist changing in the country fifty-fifty among men.

International organizations and NGOs accept also become increasingly interested in what they encounter as a peculiar and abusive cultural practice. The idea that traditional fattening customs have now morphed into cases where young women routinely ingest dangerous animate being growth hormones and steroids has caught the attending of organizations such as Equality Now. ^[35] Western perceptions often believe Leblouh to be a course of dehumanizing subjugation that should be included with FGM and sexual practice trafficking as human rights violations. The country is now being targeted by international women'due south rights groups seeking to cease the practice and Leblouh in Mauritania has become the subject of recent articles and documentaries that offer a voyeuristic window onto a practice markedly at odds with electric current Western ideas about food and body.

References [edit]

1. ^ Popenoe, Rebecca. 2004. Feeding Desire: Fatness, Beauty, and Sexuality amidst a Saharan People. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415280969.
2. ^ "De mujeres abundantemente hermosas (Abundantly beautiful women)". Archived from the original on 2014-12-25. Retrieved 2014-12-25 .
3. ^ LaFRANIERE, SHARON. In Islamic republic of mauritania, Seeking to End an Overfed Ideal Archived 2018-01-17 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, published on July 4, 2007. Accessed on June thirty, 2011.
   • "Girls as young equally 5 and as old equally xix had to beverage upwards to 5 gallons of fat-rich camel's or moo-cow'south milk daily, aiming for silvery stretch marks on their upper arms. If a daughter refused or vomited, the village weight-gain specialist might squeeze her foot between sticks, pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger astern or forcefulness her to potable her own vomit. In extreme cases, girls die, due to a burst stomach. The practice was known every bit gavage, a French term for force-feeding geese to obtain foie gras."
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13. ^ The Price of Dazzler, Episode 104
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24. ^ Chapter 1, annotation 4
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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leblouh

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