A continent that you would never associate with obesity is now joining other parts of the world in that it has a obesity problem. While large parts of Africa have people who are clearly underfed, other places especially in the cities are facing a growing problem with both men and women becoming obese.

Part of the problem is that in traditional old villages the chief’s wife was often the fattest woman in the tribe and was a source of envy and even lust. Big is considered beautiful in most of Africa and women don’t want to be skinny like their western counterparts. For a black woman having a large pair of breasts and a big rear is not something to be ashamed of.

There is a new problem with weight loss in Africa and that is that if you lose weight suddenly many people will assume that you are ill especially with such high rates of TB and AIDS in the region.

The latest figures show that 1/3rd of African women and around 25% of African men are now overweight and experts from the World Health Organisation say that this figure is likely to go over 40% and 30% respectively in the decade.

Obesity is now a bigger problem in the world than hunger. It is a shocking statistic to think that there are more overweight and obese people than there are hungry people. Estimates show that there are over 1 billion overweight people worldwide and only 800 million who are underfed.

What is strange too is that many of these overweight and obese people are very poor too and come from both rich and poor countries. They tend to be living in suburbs of big cities and they live on very unhealthy and fatty and fried food.

In all of Africa the country with the biggest weight problem is South Africa that has rising rates of diabetes and where over half of all women are obese or overweight and only less than 10% are underweight. Teenagers are also becoming more overweight with over a quarter of all girls having a BMI of 25+.

South Africa has yet to understand that exercise is good for you with many men and women believing that when they make money it is normal to do less and put on a bit of weight. It is also thought to be bad mannered to refuse food when offered it in South Africa.

Africa needs to take hold of its eating habits before it becomes the unhealthiest continent in the world and is faced chronic obesity and malnutrition side by side.