Obesity grows

Sun City, South Africa

South Africans are as fat as Americans, experts said this week at an international meeting on obesity in Africa. More than half of South African women and one-third of men are overweight, about the same rates as in the U.S. Doctors at the conference blamed the prevalence of fast food as well as a cultural preference for being heavy. Carrying extra weight has long been seen as a sign of wealth in much of Africa. With the spread of AIDS, a disease nicknamed “slim” in Africa because it causes dramatic weight loss, people are more eager than ever to flaunt their fat, to prove they are not HIV-positive.

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