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#803289
The superiority of success. This should be more of a motivating factor for bucolics to move to urban areas, and join the battle for economic success.

Fast food greases India's way to fat
Even though many children under 5 are malnourished, city dwellers are battling obesity, experts say

By Kim Barker
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published February 5, 2006

NEW DELHI -- When K.K. Bhagat spotted his one-time classmate, he was not sure it was her. In the past 20 years, she had gained 70 pounds. He had put on 75.

"Oh, my God, she used to be this beautiful girl. She used to be perfect. I wondered if she was the same girl," Bhagat said as the woman frowned.

He paused before admitting the obvious: "I'm the same. I gained a lot of weight."

So have many other Indians. Gaining weight has become common in India as the influx of Western-style fast food and long working hours have led to an increase in obesity.

Now health experts are raising alarms in the country, saying that India, where millions have gone hungry, is growing fatter. The country also is in danger of becoming the diabetes capital of the world, the World Health Organization has warned.

About 55 percent of women and 45 percent of men in New Delhi are overweight or obese, according to a recent study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. About 76 percent of the capital's women are considered to be abdominally obese--a risk factor for diabetes and heart disease.

"There are clear and hard facts in urban areas that things are as bad as they could be," said Anoop Misra, an obesity expert who worked on the recent study for the institute, the country's top medical school.

The trend has spawned an industry. In recent years, gyms and "slimming centers" have multiplied in India's cities. New stores sell plus-size clothes and lingerie. Get-thin-quick plans are advertised, complete with dramatic before-and-after pictures. A few doctors have even started performing surgeries to reduce the size of a patient's stomach. Bumper stickers on rickshaws shout "Lose weight--Don't wait."

Having overweight people in a country still battling famine is yet another contradiction in this land of contradictions, where the rich are very rich and the poor are very poor. As city dwellers fight obesity, almost half of all children younger than 5 in India are malnourished, according to the World Bank.

Fat spreading to slums too

In India, unlike in the U.S., obesity has been a problem for the middle class and the newly rich. Not for long, Misra warned. It is spreading to urban slums; fast food is moving to some rural areas.

"It's only a matter of time until the villages are affected," Misra said.

Food has always been important here, and India has long had a culture of eating well and eating late. On flights as short as 45 minutes, passengers are given a full meal. Dinner is served at 11 p.m. or midnight. Snacks often are deep-fried. Desserts are drowned in sugary syrup. At buffets, "skim" milk often has the consistency of cream.

"When you end up at parties, you end up eating anything," said Bhagat, 43, a college professor. "You never say no to your taste buds."

Until recently, most Indians ate home-cooked food and reasonable portions.

Then came Domino's, Pizza Hut and McDonald's with its Chicken Maharaja Mac and McAloo Tikki. Indian restaurants increasingly serve fast food as well, french fries and veggie burgers, to compete with the popular Western chains. The country's fast-food industry is growing 40 percent a year, according to the Worldwatch Institute, a research group in Washington.

At the Eatopia food court in New Delhi recently, Neharika Sharma, 17, ate an enormous chocolate ice cream waffle cone to celebrate finishing a test in computer class. Her classmates also bought food from the Granma's Homemade shop, which sells giant submarine sandwiches, muffins the size of a baby's head and desserts with names such as "double excess chocolate mousse" and "penalty."

Sharma said people her age would rather eat Western food or McDonald's than Indian food. Her friend pointed out the absence of lines in front of the nearby Indian food stalls.

Sharma said she tried to exercise, but most of her friends did not.

"Our country is really, really fat," she said.

Not nearly as fat as the U.S., but that does not necessarily matter. Asians tend to have a higher percentage of body fat than Caucasians. So Indians with a lower body-mass index than obese Caucasians could face more health problems.

At the same time that fast food has come to India, growing prosperity has led to a more sedentary lifestyle. Maids clean houses; chauffeurs run errands.

Passive weight loss?

Gyms are a new phenomenon and often expensive by Indian standards. And those who can afford a gym often prefer to go to "slimming centers," which usually aim to achieve weight loss through a combination of oils, heat machines and electronic stimulation.

"The gym culture is just starting to build up," said Sonali Gadhok, who manages a slimming center. "Initially, people didn't want to do anything. They just wanted to lie down, ask for the machine and wait for weight loss to happen."

But Indians are starting to realize the cold, hard truths that Americans are still struggling to accept--that weight loss comes from fewer calories and more exercise.

Rajinder Kaur, 25, enrolled in a slimming center to lose 11 pounds.

"I know what you should do--you should walk and you should diet," she said. "I just haven't. I need to. Because whatever this place does, I don't think it works. I haven't lost anything yet."



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By N'Djamena
#805751
India is loving its capitalist system I see.
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