The obesity pandemic has finally reached Africa. Although a large percent of the country is still suffering for the basics of water and food. In South Africa, the obesity rate has grown to 1 in every 3 adult men and 1 in every 2 women. Dr. Thandi Puoane blames the changes in life styles of South Africans over the years.

As their country becomes more westernized, fast food restaurants are popping up on every street corner, segregation is outlawed, and equality between whites and blacks are being settled. More blacks are moving into the cities where supermarkets and fast food restaurants are serving fatty foods causing some of the increase in obesity. The other problem is because the costs of vegetables are expensive and the only cheap foods are fresh fatty foods. But the environment isn’t the only reason why South Africans are becoming obese.

Culturally speaking, being fat shows that they are wealthy. But with little to no education about obesity the locals don’t know the definition of showing wealth and being obese. Locals also believe that being skinny, others assume that you are HIV positive. In Africa their definition of HIV is being slim, because it makes its victims literally waste away.

When Dr. Puoana first greeted her co-works, she was shocked to find that all of them were obese. Most of them stated that they did care about their weight because it showed that they were wealthy. But Dr Puoana says that how can they teach about obesity when they themselves are obese what kind of impression would they give to their students.

Although this dish looks straigh out of Asia, South Africa is well known for its diverse dishes with their own South African flavors