Fat Africans

There are a lot more than Comic Relief would have you think. In fact, every white South African over the age of fifty is nearing obesity, and among the black population most women who have given birth are packing a few extra pounds here and there.

I feel the need to talk about this because firstly I find it quite interesting, and secondly it is much more light hearted and less worrying than talk of AIDS, muggings and apartheid. So fat Africans. How do they get that way?

Essentially, because food costs so much. Fruit and veg costs more than in Western Europe, and this is in a country where people earn about ten per cent of what they do back home. So they can't afford healthy food. What do they eat instead? Just carbs, carbs, fat and more carbs.

The main staple of sub-saharan Africa is mealie pap, maize meal which is boiled in water to create something a bit like polenta but drier and more solid. Apart from this though, they just have fast food. African style.

The 'Kota' is something I would like to introduce to the UK. It is a quarter of a loaf of bread ('Kota' being pronounced 'quarter') with the inside taken out and it being filled with chips, cheese, egg, burger, a variety of sausages and anything else that fits in - often a cheeky bit of mince and mash too. Enough to fill you up for two meals - and they cost a maximum of 15 Rand - 14p.

Not the healthiest things in the world, and between that, popcorn (called 'kip-kip') and various kinds of crisps Africans are getting fat. Especially as they detest walking. The TV would have you believe that children walk miles and miles to school and for water in the morning. Not so. They get the bus outside their house or at the end of the road and then get stressed at the driver when he pulls up five metres from the school gate.

Mature African women hate walking even more. Not surprised though, they have such bad backs from carrying heavy stuff on their heads all the time that they kind of waddle, sticking out their huge backsides for everyone to collide with whilst they move at snail's pace through every environment.

Nutritional education didn't reach here. And seemingly nor did sex education. The President, Jacob Zuma, is famed for thinking it is fine to sleep with HIV positive women as long as you shower straight after sex, and the newly appointed Cheif Justice, Moegoeng Moegoeng (real name, honest - pronounced Mohweng Mohweng) believes that there is no such thing as rape in the home. These are the two individuals with the most influence over the law. No wonder South African politics is imploding.

But on a lighter note, the South African murder rate shrunk by 6% in the last year, latest figures show. Only 19,500 were murdered last year. In a country of less than fifty million. That's quite a few, in case you were wondering.

Dangerous? I smile in the face of danger (that's a direct quote from the Lion King, it's not actually how I feel. I saw the Lion King in 3D the other day, feeling like I was in need of a proper African experience).

So there are loads of Fat Africans, probably proportionate to the number of fat Americans in the US, and the political situation is dire. I will offload some more useful tidbits sometime soon.