The Unlikely Problem of Obesity in the Developing World
I can’t say enough about these BBC World Service radio documentaries. Each one is fascinating, in-depth and articulate. They come from all over the world (the diversity of accents is a nice bonus), covering a breadth of topics that matter–from the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict to homophobia in Jamaica. They’re served up in 22-minute chunks, but usually have multiple parts.
I just listened to the first episode of Globesity. Paul Bakibinga, an overweight Ugandan, visits South Africa to investigate the vexing, exploding problem of obesity in a developing nation:
With 1.6 billion people overweight worldwide, fat is now recognised as a major global health threat – even in the developing world…
According to the World Health Organisation, there are twice as many overweight as the 800 million who are undernourished.
The program is full of interesting facts. One doctor descries South Africa as now facing a fourth epidemic (after violence, third world diseases like Malaria and HIV/AIDS) of obesity. The phenomenon is worst amongst urban, black women, two-thirds of whom are overweight.
It’s a madly complicated problem. Not only is access to nutritional food unreliable, but there are also AIDS-related and ingrained cultural stigmas against appearing thin. Ironically, many of the overweight people are also undernourished because of their poor diet.
alexis 
Harmen 
darren