Share and Voice 8: Can You Imagine Being Force-Fed at 10 Years Old?

Last weekend, I was getting my hair done and I was reading through a magazine and found one interesting article. I'm not one to look through magazines so I was shocked to find myself wrapped into this one, but the story was jaw-dropping I had to read it. The picture was a woman extremely overweight with stretch marks and had a caption to go along with it that said something along the lines of how beautiful she was. She is from a country in Africa called Mauritania (pronounced more-tane-ya) which is one of the very few countries in the world where being fat is considered attractive. In fact, it is seen as more than attractive, it is seen as wealthy, too. This is a very old practice the US even had many, many years ago with having women being extremely overweight because it showed a sign of wealth. Mauritania still has this view. It is only practiced in women, though, and men are said to 'drool' at the sight of them! It starts at a very young age for females, around 10, and they are literally force-fed all day. These girls are said to take in between 14,000-16,000 calories a day! That seems absolutely ludicrous and surreal, but for these girls it's nothing short than normal. To achieve this caloric intake, many of the foods they eat are pure fat, or fat rolled into balls slathered with more fat on top of it. The article explained that if these girls are to refuse, their punishment is to eat MORE! If they are to vomit up what they eat, they have to eat their vomit! One lady had commented that her boyfriend she has constantly compliments her on how beautiful she is. The problem is she said she wants to lose some weight and wear jeans and heels like she sees in magazines, but she is too scared her boyfriend won't like her anymore. 
After reading about this I have researched a little bit here and there and can't find that exact article from the magazine, but have found some other ones. BBC News has the most recent article I found called Mauritania's Wife-Fattening Farm and said that although many rural women in this country are still practicing this tradition, it is slowly fading out. Check out the article and see how these women are treated! I found this video which describes it all! Very interesting ritual, but scary at the same time! I would love to go over there and educate these women on how they are jeopardizing their health.