Health
In Poorer Countries, Obesity Can Signal Financial Security
In the world’s wealthiest countries, the richer people are, the thinner they tend to be.
But in Uganda, one of the poorest nations, where nearly half the population eats fewer calories than they need each day, excess fat is often a sign of wealth and can help get a bank loan, according to a forthcoming article in The American Economic Review.
It’s not surprising that in places where food is scarce, obesity serves as a significant marker of wealth.
But what the new study points out is that in poor countries, information is also scarce. And in those situations, loan officers use whatever bits of evidence they can find to help make critical economic decisions.
“Given the scarcity of readily available hard information in poor countries, wealth signals, including obesity, play a crucial role in economic interactions where individuals seek to evaluate someone’s wealth,” said Elisa Macchi, an assistant professor of economics at Brown University.
As part of her research, Ms. Macchi conducted tests with 238 loan officers at 146 financial institutions in the capital city of Kampala. She asked them to review applications from fictionalized potential borrowers whose accompanying photographs were manipulated so they appeared thin or fat.
It is not uncommon in Uganda for people to include a photo of themselves when submitting a loan application, and it can be one nugget of information that a loan officer uses to decide whether to even grant an applicant a first interview, Ms. Macchi said.
What she discovered was that loan officers were more likely to rate the applicants as more creditworthy and more financially sound when the obese version of the photograph was attached.
“The obesity premium is large, equivalent to the effect of a 60 percent increase in borrower self-reported income in the experiment,” or an additional asset like ownership of a car, the study concluded.
Historically, corpulence was prized in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Mauritania was once notorious for the custom of brutally force-feeding young girls to make them more marriageable — a practice referred to as gavage, taken from the French term for force-feeding geese to produce foie gras. Fat was a considered both a sign of family wealth and a cultural ideal.
Lately, obesity has become an increasingly worrisome health risk on the continent, a development that follows the trend in the richest nations where obesity is often correlated with poverty. The easy availability of cheap, highly processed foods that have little nutritional value allows people to satisfy hunger pangs without promoting overall health.
In developing countries, changes in diets, a lack of physical activity and the use of varying modes of transportation particularly in cities are helping to drive the weight gain.
“Africa is facing a growing problem of obesity and overweight, and the trends are rising,” Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said last year in a statement. “If unchecked, millions of people, including children, risk living shorter lives under the burden of poor health.”
Research has found that obesity has been associated with severe disease, and hospitalization of Covid-19 patients.
The World Health Organization and other international organizations have started to work with Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to develop programs and standards to promote healthy diets and physical activity.
Cultural associations and stereotypes, though, often persist despite science-based recommendations, such as the perception that fat signals an abundance of money.
But at least in the case of loan officers in Uganda, facts ultimately trumped perception. When more solid information was provided — like the loan applicant’s income, collateral and occupation — lenders used it, and the so-called obesity premium fell.
“The good thing is that it’s not that entrenched,” Ms. Macchi said about preconceived notions about wealth and weight. “The moment when we give them the information, then they respond to it.”
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Ivanka Trump, the daughter of incoming President Donald Trump, has been known to lead an active life.
As the mother of three kids and a lover of outdoor sports, the 43-year-old is always on the move, recently adding jiu-jitsu to her mix of physical activity.
In a recent appearance on The Skinny Confidential Him & Her podcast, Trump shared how her daughter, Arabella, expressed interest in learning self-defense when she was 11.
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“I’m just so in awe of [her],” Trump said about her daughter. “She came to me and said, ‘As a woman, I feel like I need to know how to defend myself, and I don’t have a confidence level yet that I can do that.’”
Ivanka Trump plays with her daughter, Arabella Rose Kushner, in the Rose Garden during a Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House in June 2017. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Trump responded, “At 11 … I was not thinking about how to physically defend myself, and I thought it was the coolest thing.”
After researching self-defense options, Trump enrolled Arabella, now 13, in jiu-jitsu (martial arts) classes with the Valente Brothers in Miami, Florida – and soon the whole family joined in.
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“[Arabella] started asking me to join – I joined,” she said. “Then my two sons wanted to do what their older sister was doing. Then my husband joined … It is good for everyone.”
“It’s almost like a moving meditation.”
Trump, who is now a blue belt in jiu-jitsu, described that she likes how the sport “meshes physical movement.”
“It’s almost like a moving meditation because the movements are so micro,” she said. “It’s like three-dimensional chess.”
“There’s like a real spiritualism to it … The grounding in sort of samurai tradition and culture and wisdom.”
During President Trump’s first term in the White House, Ivanka Trump noted that she had very little focus on fitness, only taking weekly runs with husband Jared Kushner and “chasing the kids around the house.”
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Trump shared that she was “never a gym person,” but always loved sports, which still holds true today.
She said she enjoys skiing, surfing and racquet sports like padel tennis (a hybrid of tennis and squash) and pickle ball, which she described as “fun and social.”
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are seen out for a walk with their children on Dec. 10, 2022, in Miami, Florida. (MEGA/GC Images)
‘Elevating awareness’
On the podcast, Trump said she was drawn to jiu-jitsu because it combines physical fitness and philosophy.
It also focuses more on how to extract yourself from a dangerous situation before having to harm someone who’s a threat, she noted.
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“Having these skills makes you less likely to get into a fight, not more likely to,” Trump went on.
“Once you have the confidence that you can sort of move out of a situation, there’s a real focus on elevating awareness.”
Ivanka Trump waves as she arrives at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland for US President Donald Trump’s departure on Jan. 20, 2021. (ALEX EDELMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
In a previous interview with Fox News Digital, Rener Gracie, head instructor of jiu-jitsu at Gracie University in California, stressed that the only truly reliable skills are those that have been “mastered into muscle memory.”
This occurs through extensively practicing self-defense methods like Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which are “leverage-based and don’t rely on you having a physical advantage over the subject,” he noted.
“Having these skills makes you less likely to get into a fight, not more likely to.”
“And by that, I mean strength, speed, power and size — because in almost every case, the attacker is going to target someone who they feel is physically inferior to them.”
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Gracie, whose family created Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), shared that jiu-jitsu is “highly sought after” because it only takes weeks or months for someone to “develop the core skills that could keep them safe in a violent physical encounter.”
‘Transformative’ strength training
In addition to mastering self-defense skills, Ivanka Trump recently revealed a shift in her fitness routine to include weightlifting and resistance training.
On Instagram, Trump posted a video displaying different exercises with various equipment in the gym, noting in the caption that she used to focus primarily on cardio, yoga and Pilates.
“Since moving to Miami, I have shifted my focus to weightlifting and resistance training, and it has been transformative in helping me build muscle and shift my body composition in ways I hadn’t imagined,” she wrote.
“I believe in a strength training approach built on foundational, time-tested and simple movements – squats, deadlifts, hinges, pushes and pulls. These are the cornerstones of my workout, emphasizing functional strength for life.”
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Trump added that prioritizing form is “essential” to ensure results before adding on weight.
“This ensures a safe and steady progression while maintaining the integrity of each movement,” she continued. “I incorporate mobility work within my sessions to enhance range of motion.”
“I believe in a strength training approach built on foundational, time-tested and simple movements – squats, deadlifts, hinges, pushes and pulls,” Ivanka Trump wrote in an October Instagram post. (Ivanka Trump/Instagram)
“Weightlifting has enhanced not just my strength but my overall athleticism and resilience,” she added.
Trump said she dedicates three to four days a week to strength training, including two solo sessions and two with a personal trainer.
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She also said that increasing her protein intake has also been “critical” to her progress.
“I now consume between 30 and 50 grams of protein a meal,” she said. “It works … I’ve never been stronger!”
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are seen arriving at the beachside eatery on May 2, 2024, in Miami Beach, Florida. (MEGA/GC Images)
Trump also still enjoys weekly yoga sessions, spending time outdoors with her children and playing sports with friends, she said.
“I also incorporate a couple of short (10-minute), high-intensity interval training sessions (such as sprints) each week to keep my cardiovascular fitness sharp and dynamic,” she noted.
“This balanced approach has infused new energy into my fitness routine and yielded great results.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Ivanka Trump for comment.
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