Bless you, Unreasonable Standard of Beauty

Every once is a while virulent marketing campaigns accidentally do something useful or good. (By virulent, I mean having the same redeeming social qualities as AIDS only harder to get rid of.) For example, balancing unreasonable standards of beauty against one another, so they balance out. Let's take a look at Mauritania, an Islamic republic on the western edge of the Sahara. The standard of beauty for the nomadic people who make a living in the middle of this giant desert has been on the heavy end of the scale. It stands to reason that in a place with limited resources, signs of overindulgence would seem a desirable trait in a mate. This leads to the force feeding of female children, from about the ages of 12 to 15. Some die during the process. Most have serious health problems as a result.

It's what happens next that makes me giggle. It's East meets West in a truly wonderful way.

Western standards of beauty, by which I mean the American and European "I've been up all week doing heroin backstage and coke off the guitar player's dick" super thin and raggedy looks, are making headway in Mauritania. The result? People are starting to no longer force feed their children like ducks for fois gras. Obese women are starting to work out and get healthy. The standard of living for women is increasing. Because of western standards of beauty. The same one that results in "pro-ana" websites and ten year old girls with fatal eating disorders. Jesus Christ.

But as LaVare Burton says, "you don't have to take my word for it!" Check it out here.