THE OTHER MALNUTRITION
Every year in Kenya, obesity kills four out of ten people: a paradox in a country where undernutrition rates remain extremely high. But it is also an emergency that, by 2030, will affect the whole of Africa.
“We Africans have become sedentary. We spend our days in cars or in offices, we eat in fast-food restaurants, and our children put on weight in front of the television.” At Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Professor Vincent Onywera studies a phenomenon that has been a real emergency in Kenya for years: the rise in obesity, especially among the very young. So while outside the capital “malnutrition” means insufficient food, in Nairobi the opposite is true: among the middle and upper classes, where lifestyles resemble those of the West, junk food consumption and lack of physical activity prevail.
The Ministry of Health has acknowledged the problem, introducing checks on school menus and banning vending machines in schools. But the numbers are clear: in Nairobi, almost one person in two is overweight. The problem affects many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, which, despite having the highest rates of undernutrition in the world, are also seeing an exponential rise in deaths from diseases linked to obesity. It is a paradox partly explained by the belief that being fat is a symbol of wealth. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the World Health Organization’s Regional Director for Africa, has sounded the alarm: in Kenya, obesity is responsible for 39 percent of deaths each year, making it the leading cause of death in the country. And according to the WHO, the same will be true across the African continent by 2030.
