HIV/AIDS hampers fat reduction efforts

As South Africa prepares to unleash a new offensive on obesity, perceptions that thin people are HIV-positive threatens to hamper the battle.

Doctor Thandi Puoane, a researcher at the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, said surveys in the Eastern and Western Cape showed that fat was associated with being healthy, and thin with having HIV or AIDS.

A local newspaper, Sunday Times, quoted Puoane as saying: "The women we speak to say that if they're fat and then lose weight, their communities will say they've got HIV/AIDS. Even school kids are telling us this."

The Health Department said more than half the country's women were overweight or obese, with the figure for African women reaching nearly 60 percent, and warned that the social and cultural aspects of obesity were a "big challenge" that should not be ignored.