© Annu Kilpeläinen

To understand this, I drove one sunny Monday morning to visit Petrus Molefe Park in Soweto, named after a local hero of the liberation struggle. Two years ago the city council installed an impressive ‘green gym’ among the immaculately clipped lawns to encourage residents to get fit. Sure enough, the first person I met was the perfect promoter for the idea: an unemployed man named Vusi, who told me he spent two hours every day pumping iron after abandoning his unhealthy lifestyle and shedding several pounds.

Then we were joined by three young women, who confessed that this was the first time they had come along, in a bid to lose weight. I started talking to Octavia Mphumbude, tentatively testing a running machine in her turquoise jeans and black cardigan. “I won’t lie – I like junk food a lot,” said the 25-year-old single mother, who has never managed to find a job in her life despite intensive efforts and voluntary work. “The trouble is that when I am hungry I crave fast food. It is hard to resist. And many of the women around here are unemployed like me, so if you are unhappy it is comfort food. This is why weight is an issue for us.”

Unfortunately, poor people fill their bellies with cheap food – and this often means salt-drenched starchy carbohydrates, highly processed sweetened products and the fattiest cuts of meat discarded by wealthier consumers. Street-food surveys found that chicken sold in townships is often little more than skin and that other meat is just fatty offal, while foreign fast food is seen as sophisticated. Meanwhile mothers go without meals to ensure their children eat, then gorge when they have money.

All this can led to ‘hidden hunger’, when people eat regularly and even put on weight but lack nutrients and vitamins needed by their bodies, leading to long-term health damage. “In one household you can see children who are undernourished, the man with normal weight and then the wife who may be heavily overweight,” said Zandile Mchiza, an expert with the Chronic Diseases of Lifestyle Unit at the Medical Research Council. “This is why we have the issue of obesity coming up so strongly in Africa even as many people are still starving.”

Mchiza also pointed to cultural issues that fuel obesity in Africa, with big men seen as successful and big women seen as beautiful. “The majority of black South African men prefer chubby women. If your cheekbones are showing then you are not beautiful in our culture,” said the 34-year-old scientist. “If you are too thin then it means your husband is not taking care of you or you are unhappy. And your children must be fat too – I remember we were force-fed growing up, always told to eat up all our food and not waste anything on our plates.”

I heard similar claims from several other experts – and certainly a glance at the internet indicates specialist dating sites for “cuddly” people seem to be booming. A study last year by the Human Sciences Research Council found 88 per cent of South Africans regard a fat body as their ideal, and most people see no need to change their lifestyle. But Mchiza believes traditional attitudes are slowly changing as cultures meld together in cities and the country is influenced by differing global perceptions of beauty. “Urbanised women of black ethnicity are becoming dissatisfied with their body size,” said Mchiza. “But it is very difficult to hasten cultural change.”

© Annu Kilpeläinen

Clearly this corrosive concept that fat is a sign of success still clings on in South Africa, as in some other countries on the continent, although many people I spoke with seemed to know it was a myth. “I am big not because I am wealthy but because I have problems with money,” said Christabel Ntomuifuthi, 45, squished into a plastic chair beside communal vegetable gardens in Orange Farm, an informal settlement about 30 miles from Johannesburg. “I eat all the time just so I am full of something but it is not healthy.”

We talked beside lovingly tended plots of spinach, peas, beetroot, rosemary and onions, created on land reclaimed from carjackers who once burned stolen vehicles there. The city council wants to ensure some squatters can earn cash while eating more healthily – but for all their efforts, Ntomuifuthi showed the difficulty of changing attitudes. “If I had money I would eat meat Monday to Monday because I love it so much, although my weight is already too much,” she said, roaring with laughter. “I would eat lots of T-bone steaks and McDonald’s.”

Several other township women mentioned another depressing reason not to diet. “There is a stigma that if you are a black woman and start losing weight you might be ill, that you might have HIV,” said Dudu Masooana, a friendly 38-year-old mother of three from Soweto whom I met as she lunched on fried chicken and pap, a traditional porridge made from ground maize. “This really matters if you are a woman coming from the ghetto.”

Masooana had also bought a ‘bunny chow’ on her way to work – a popular and filling street food made of hollowed-out bread loaf stuffed with curry, a legacy of the apartheid era when Indians, along with black people, were banned from many shops and restaurants. After our discussion of diet, she told me she would give it to one of the poorly paid security guards at the busy shopping mall where she was employed, since they often missed meals.