FAT FARMS: the practice of GAVAGE

From the roll of the ages, we have always heard stories of women, who went to great lengths to alter their physiques. We can trivially think of the Kardashian sisters, who in the decade of the two thousand, brought back the figure of the woman with a very soft silhouette.

In recent years, they too have adapted to the “skinny woman” trend, and it is rumoured that to lose weight they have used liraglutide and semaglutide, which are drugs that fight hyperglycemia.

But back to us; a very famous Mauritanian proverb says:“a woman occupies in her husband’s heart the place she occupies in his bed.”

In Mauritania a woman is considered desirable and beautiful only if she is fat, but not only that, in fact a fat woman is also synonymous with wealth ,women know this well and do everything to gain weight.

Hence we have the birth of the practice of Gavage or also called Leblouh.

What is it? As the Oxford Languages dictionary quotes Gavage is: “the administration of food or drugs by force, especially to an animal, usually through a tube down the throat to the stomach.”

Unfortunately, this article will not explain the violence that is perpetuated to animals, but rather of what happens to the 20 percent of girls who are forcibly fed every year for 2–3 months during the rainy season, with two goals the first to gain weight and the second to find husbands.

During this period the girls consume more than 9 thousand calories (approximately) a day through 2 kilograms of millet , mixed with 2 cups of melted butter and 20 liters of sweetened camel milk.

The girls are taken to actual farms set up for fattening.

These farms are located in uninhabited places in the desert, and they are forced to eat until they reach their daily caloric intake.

No matter, if the girls feel sick, they have to keep eating , because otherwise they are threatened by the overseers (who are very often the mothers themselves) with the intimidation of corporal punishment.

The optimal weight for a girl is 100 kilograms, if they fail to reach it.

It is common to use drugs (steroids), which are commonly used to speed up the growth of animals on farms.

Needless to say, these drugs have disastrous consequences for the human body and can even lead to death.

The hardest part for girls is to continue to maintain the same lifestyle, trying not to lose weight, and keep gaining weight; many women cannot logically maintain those rhythms.

The only thing they can do is to take steroids to maintain that physicality, but unfortunately many women die because those drugs are not meant for humans, but rather for animals.

The girls are introduced by their mothers to the Gavage from a very tender age-in fact, it is very common to find girls on these farms who are as young as 6 years old.

If the girls manage to put on weight and have a weight appropriate to the standards in Mauritania she is ready to be given as a bride.

The issue of child brides is still a huge social scourge, which makes it difficult to stop, in fact every three seconds a girl child is forced into marriage.

For a total of 12 million little girls a year ( worldwide).

In Mauritania getting a 10-year-old girl married is normal, and the mothers’ job is to fatten them up , so as to ensure a good marriage.

After all, the common thought is that a married daughter is one less mouth to feed.

Leblouh is just one of the tips of the iceberg of a problem, which has deep roots in society, not only that of Mauritania, but also all over the world.

One wonders how much a woman’s concept of beauty is dictated by male society, and not by women in the first place.

To conform to the aesthetic characteristics of society has become almost like a struggle for survival.