Fat Mother With A Malnourished, Skinny Child! Paradoxical?

The emotions that flood one's thoughts upon seeing a mother carrying a starving African child is both heart breaking and infuriating.

....But what if the malnourished, starving, skin-and-bones child was being carried by his fat mother!?!?

If you think about that for a second, you realize how entirely paradoxical that picture is. Yet it's a very common occurrence in developing nations.

A Nutrition Paradox — Underweight and Obesity in Developing Countries

A few years ago, I was visiting a primary care clinicin the slums of São Paulo. The waiting room was full of mothers with thin, stunted young children, exhibiting the typical signs of chronic undernutrition. Their appearance, sadly, would surprise few who visit poor urban areas in the developing world. What might come as a surprise is that many of the mothers holding those undernourished infants were themselves overweight. The combination of underweight in children and overweight in adults, frequently coexisting in the same family, is a relatively new phenomenon in developing countries undergoing the nutrition transition.

If you subscribe to the to the idea that we get fat because we eat too much, you're essentially telling me that mothers are sacrificing their children's health because they simply can't put the fork down.

That goes against maternal instinct and motherhood. It's a rather ridiculous assertion to think that a mother would watch her child starve to death because she's a lazy, fat-ass who has no self-control. Absolutely unbelievable.

There's another, less-pronounced paradox that was just recently uncovered, as well.

Homeless and Overweight: Obesity Is the New Malnutrition

numbers generally matched obesity rates expected among the general population, a surprising finding among people ostensibly too poor to buy enough food.

The homeless are digging through trash-cans for food, begging for change...yet they're just as obese as the general population. And fat mothers in developing nations are raising malnourished, skinny children.

Once again, if people get get fat because they lack self-control and eat too much then, logically, we should not be observing the two paradoxes mention

Until someone can logically explain this paradox within the current model of "why we get fat," I'll continue slamming posters that ignorantly post stuff like this: www.abovetopsecret.com...

What a cop-out OP. This kind of thing does NOTHING to fight the obesity crisis.


Obesity is caused by only 2 things.. Over-nutrition and under-stimulation ( besides rare medical conditions ).

(1) You only need 3 meals a day if you have a very physical job, 2 if you are sitting on your behind all day.

(2) The reason why things get harder to maintain at a certain age is because we are living too long. Our body gets confused after 32 and random things happen with our hormones. It is at that point you have to re-adjust your lifestyle. It is purely ego that stops us from considering this. We think it is our right to live to 80 and carry on as usual.

I am a mortician and have spent the last 6 years working to fight the obesity crisis, and designed practical ideas to help people. Not just "ideas" that help no-one.


Note: If what you said was true, people starving would initially loose weight, then gain some of it back. History has shown this does not happen.

And I'll continue posting threads like this: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thank you.

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


I have read two of Taubes' books. He presents a compelling case! I eat mostly vegetables, nuts, and legumes, with a little egg and dairy thrown in. Occasional fruit. Almost no grains, and zero sugar. Eating this way has changed my life!

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


Maybe it's not the quantity of food the mothers are eating but the quality. The horrible food they are feeding their children are used right up because they are young, but maybe in the mothers, their bodies store it because it is familiar. Think about all the preservatives in food and what not. Children's bodies probably process it quickly or expel it. The mothers' do not. That's my theory.

reply to post by fictitious


They probably eat a lot at places like McDonalds or Burger King, We all know how good that food is for you! I reckon it's about the education in food, that's where the problem is. You can make some really good veggie dishes that are cheap and better for you. Not saying you would have to go completely veg but I assure you those people don't eat veggies.

I reccommend you all watch a documentary on Youtube called:

Sugar: The Bitter Truth.

I would link, but I'm on my phone

It gives a very unique insight during one section on why impoverished people tend to have malnourished children, whilst having an obese/fat adult population.

It also goes onto give some biochemical facts pertaining to fructose and other sugars effects on the body, compared to the lie that fatty food is bad for you


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