Leblouh

Leblouh (Arabic: البلوح‎, romanized: lə-blūḥ) is the practice of force-feeding girls from as young as five to nineteen, in countries where obesity was traditionally regarded as desirable.[1][2][3] Especially prevalent in rural areas and having its roots in Tuareg[4] tradition, leblouh is practiced to increase chances of marriage in a society where high body volume used to be a sign of wealth. The practice is being done in several African countries, such as Mauritania[5][6][7][8][9][10][11], Niger[12], Uganda[13], Morocco[14], Sudan[15], Tunisia[12] (specifically Jewish people[16]), Nigeria[17][18][19][20], Kenya and South Africa.[21] The synonym gavage comes from the French term for the force-feeding of geese to produce foie gras.

The practice goes back to the 11th century, and has been reported to have made a significant comeback in Mauritania after a military junta took over the country in 2008.[22] The younger generations of males in Mauritania now see fattening negatively.[23]

Older women called "fatteners" force the young girls to consume enormous quantities of food and liquid,[22] inflicting pain on them if they do not eat and drink. One way of inflicting pain is to pinch a limb between two sticks. A six-year-old might typically be forced to drink 20 litres (4.4 imp gal; 5.3 US gal) of camel's milk, and eat two kilos of pounded millet mixed with two cups of butter, every day. Although the practice is abusive, mothers claim there is no other way to secure a good future for their children.[22][23]

A similar practice is referred to in a folktale entitled "The Tortoise with a Pretty Daughter", collected in Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria (1910). The folklorist who wrote down the story explained the treatment of the "pretty daughter": "The fatting house is a room where a girl is kept for some weeks before her marriage. She is given plenty of food, and made as fat as possible, as fatness is looked upon as a great beauty by the Efik people."[24]

• 
  Tunisian Jewish woman, about 1900.
• 
  Big Jew, from Garrigues on Djerba island.
• 
  Tunisian Jewish woman of the 1910s.
• 
  Jewish women in Tunisia. About 1910.