Diet, Exercise and Body Image Issues Abroad

Click here for the Lead Stories

Diet, Exercise and Body Image Issues Abroad—Part 2

Posted July 24, 2007 at 03:15 PM by Bridget Sullivan

Section: Her Adventure, Her Fitness, Her Health, Body Image, Her Story, Special Features

The following article was submitted by A.J. Melnikas. A.J. Melnikas currently works in clinical research. In the past, she has worked with non-profit health organizations targeting women’s and adolescent health issues. She will begin MPH studies this fall. An avid runner and coach, A.J. has completed 4 marathons and is planning to run Boston next year. Her cultural adventures include studying in Spain, South Africa and Nepal; teaching English in China and traveling to France, Belize, Japan, Swaziland and the Dominican Republic. Click here to read Part 1 of this series.

world-map When traveling in developing countries there are many things to worry about in order to stay healthy: clean water, pollution, even diseases like malaria and giardia. So why was I worried about my weight?

Before arriving at my host family’s house in a village outside Katmandu, I had never been called fat, at least not to my face. In Nepal, the Himalayan Kingdom home to Everest and the Annapurna mountain range, I was frequently reminded that I was “moto”. Moto (moTo) is a Nepali word translated as “fat” that also implies healthy and beautiful in Nepali culture. But when I heard that word, I didn’t feel beautiful.

I tried to explain to my host family in broken Nepali that where I was from, being called fat wasn’t necessarily a compliment and American women in general didn’t feel proud to be viewed that way. My host mother just laughed at me and said that it was fine that they did things differently in America, but I was Nepali now (at least for 6 months), and she was not going to let me go home to my mother unless I was moto. The more moto I was upon my return home, the better it reflected her abilities as a caretaker.

I should also explain that I am a runner and have been since high school. I’m not a particularly fast runner and I am not especially thin, but I run consistently and when I left to study in Nepal my junior year of college, I had just completed my first marathon. I thought I was fit—being fat wasn’t something that concerned me. Like many college-aged women, I thought about my body and I watched my weight, but it didn’t let it consume me. While I wasn’t in Nepal to lose weight, I wanted to continue to run and stay active and healthy because that was a part of my lifestyle.

But running in Nepal presented some unique problems. Avoiding the heat and humidity of the monsoon season was a challenge, as was breathing in both the altitude (about 4200 ft in Katmandu, higher in other areas) and the pollution. It wasn’t unusual to come home to my small village from an afternoon in the city with nostrils blackened by vehicle emissions. However, I was unfazed by these issues and decided that I would become a morning runner, waking each day at 5AM to run in my village before the men and women began work in the fields. This was advantageous as well, since I was able to complete my run before it was scorching hot and before most people were up and about. This was important since the sight of a foreigner with pale skin and red hair running between rice fields was a spectacle to say the least.

Day after day I ran. My host brothers, ages 9 and 12, were intrigued by my activities. They told me that women didn’t run for fun, and that neighbors were asking my host family about my morning habit. “Who is chasing you?” became a frequent joke at our house. They asked if I was trying to lose weight, if I was unhappy being moto. The truth was hard to explain; part of me was unhappy being moto, even though I could see how it was desirable in Nepali culture. It still left me feeling badly about my body because when they called me moto I still heard fat. Yet, I couldn’t express these feelings because I didn’t want to disrespect their cultural ideals. So I smiled when they called me moto, and resisted the urge to debate the cultural differences surrounding aesthetic ideals.

As a student in my host family’s house I had no say in what I ate or drank. Turning down food is unacceptable in many Nepali families since, at times, food can be scarce, and without refrigeration food cannot be easily stored. In order to be a good host child, you eat what your host mother puts on your plate; I was no different. I used running as a coping mechanism for my feelings of being out of control with food and for feeling bad about being moto in the eyes of this new culture. Although running was a way to cope, I also dealt with the stress and body image issues by talking with friends studying abroad about their experiences and thinking about Nepali ideals and their context.

Knowing that others were dealing with similar body image issues was really important to me. Their support and understanding were essential for coping without resorting to destructive eating or exercise behaviors. As I learned more about the culture, being moto made more sense. Although I never quite took pride in being moto, I learned to appreciate that my host family cared enough about me to worry that I was, in their eyes, healthy and loved.

Photo: ©istockphoto.com