R/Fatlogic is one of my favorite subs. You all helped me tackle the absurdities of Western food and fitness culture with humor when I was at my desk job in America. Now I am living in a developing country in West Africa. Needless to say the dynamics and relationships around food are very different than in the U.S. Nearly everyone I meet here is ripped (especially in the rural areas that I stay). They have very low body fat thanks to constant manual labor and food being less available. They also continue to be strong and fit into very old age. 75 year old women will still go to farm and carry bundles of firewood back for miles on their heads.
As you might expect, seeing how food is treated here brings me new and different outrage about fatlogic. The activities that make the people here so strong, carrying firewood, fetching water, farming, etc. truly are a burden and dominate their whole lives. I do not mean to romanticize this aspect. These necessary chores take children out of school and keep people living hand to mouth in many cases. At the same time it is inspiring to see people who are so fit just from living their lives. It is a reminder that this is how we evolved to be. We are intended to exert ourselves on a daily basis. A 2 mile walk should not be difficult for us. Trust me, becoming obese with this lifestyle would be a challenge. Out of the thousands of people I've met I've seen maybe two dozen who were overweight and maybe a handful of truly obese people. The claims from people back home about how "it's muh genetics" just feel all the more pathetic. Every American I know who has come to this country has lost weight without even trying. I would challenge any fatlogician to come here, live this lifestyle and remain the same size they were when they arrived.
Despite the people's appearance here of being in prime physical shape, many still suffer from malnutrition. This is so upsetting to me because in the developed world we have all the nutrition we could dream of at our fingertips. In the face of all these options people choose calorie dense low-nutrient content foods instead. As I said, Americans here lose weight (me included) but it is often because we are losing muscle. It is difficult to secure reliable, affordable protein sources. It is hard to find fruits and veggies when you don't have a refrigerator to preserve them. The problem of malnutrition on top of a million others, clean water, malaria prevention, sexual health, education, truly makes all of the running away and crying in my car tumblr posts seem tragically trivial and self-absorbed.
I could keep writing forever, but I'll spare you. I know that these are all things we imagined about the developing world, but seeing them face to face... just thought I'd share the perspective.
Submitted January 03, 2016 at 08:21PM by clavvv http://ift.tt/1kCrB8v fatlogic
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