About a week ago, an alarming report regarding female obesity in the metro areas was published on the front pages of this newspaper. It goes without saying that obesity is one of the foundational phenomena of any number of chronic, debilitating, and often fatal diseases.
The report was alarming but not quite surprising.
Sociologists and health care professionals in the West and in East Asia have long known the trend where a slow uptick in the standard of urban living coincides with slightly more access to richer foods, more labour saving gadgets for domestic work, and fewer children in the household.
Put together, all these trends help reduce, albeit slightly, the need for raw physical labour in the household for educated, urban families. Given that even today a disproportionate burden of domestic chores is undertaken by women, this change, while slight, can trigger weight gain, a process that has a proclivity to become more pronounced as one grows in age.
There are no easy solutions to this side-effect of modern life, as the obesity rates in the United States and Canada amply demonstrate. Nonetheless, a simple solution does exist and is often taken advantage of by other societies that have faced this conundrum: Simple and regular exercise.
In the modest North American city that I live, it is quite normal to see men and women of a professional background change into informal attire and go out to walk the neighbourhood streets after the work day is over.
There is no expensive equipment, athletic trainer, or fancy gadgetry required for this activity (Well, in my case, that is not entirely true: My “athletic trainer” is my dog Copper, whose food, grooming, and healthcare costs do add up!).
It is simply a matter of routine and desire.
Easier said than done, I know. And for women, it is a tall order in a society like urban Bangladesh.
With the rapidly shrinking open spaces in most metro areas, the opportunities for jogging or walking are becoming more limited by the day, while very few can afford the exorbitant costs of joining the newly built gyms and exercise parlours.
Even in public areas where some semblance of open air is available, what do we see? Just some months ago, in as supposedly a “progressive” place as the University of Dhaka campus, two young women and their award-winning photojournalist uncle were assaulted just for being out and about in fresh air.
When their friends came to peacefully protest this outrageous incident at the Shaheed Minar, the ruling party’s own student wing was there threatening them with violence for supposedly wearing “Western” outfits.
Were it not for the rather brave intervention of the daughter of a cabinet member who happened to be there to plead with the statuary police to protect the victims, only God knows what would have happened.
Unfortunately, such instances have been all too common for all too long a time to the point that women of any age simply cannot think of going out to take a stroll, let alone a jog, through the few open spaces or footpaths that are available in our cities.
The very fact that a grown woman would want to engage in physical exercise, walk, jog, or participate in informal sports in a public place is anathema to the modern Bengali psyche, secular or otherwise.
I mean, let us be blunt: A middle-aged woman in a tracksuit jogging around even in an upscale area like Dhanmondi in daylight hours will be very lucky to get home without cuts and bruises, if not much worse. You can then imagine the same woman in the evening hours at Moghbazar or Old Dhaka.
As you see, we pay a real price -- in this instance, of health and wellbeing -- for discrimination. This price is only going to inch upwards as, ironically, the urban standards of living slowly improve over time.
I really don’t know what solution there is in the context of Bangladesh, if any. If 44 years after Independence, a Bangladeshi woman cannot take a walk in her own neighbourhood without a very real fear of harassment, injury, rape, or death while the perpetrators openly roam free, I doubt there is much to be hoped for at this point.
But then, within us we have always had the flicker betting against hopelessness and somehow winning the wager, haven’t we?
