The Overarching Cost of Beauty in Mauritania

Abstract

This research paper outlines the risks women in Mauritania - including girls at the extremely young age of five years old - take to secure marriage and appear attractive to those who are male-identifying. Over time, the United States has become more inclusive with a broader spectrum of sizes that they carry in stores. However, not much long ago, the beauty standard in American society was to look as thin as possible (Wiseman et al., 1992). Girls in the United States would undergo dangerous diets, supplements, and bizarre exercises to stay thin, where in Mauritania, their beauty standard revolved around the complete opposite (Wiseman et al., 1992). Instead, girls in Mauritania grew up in environments where the standards of beauty perpetuated obesity. Mauritanian men claimed that skinny women looked like skeletons and they’d prefer not to sleep with “a bag of bones” (Esposito, 2022). Obesity in Mauritania was seen as a status symbol as many people believed larger women were wealthy because their husband had the financial means to gorge her on copious amounts of food. Therefore, women who were looking for potential suitors would try to become as large as possible to appear desirable to other men.