Arab diets 阿拉伯饮食

迪拜中文网

Arab diets
阿拉伯饮食
转载
Feast and famine
盛宴与饥荒

The biblical seven lean and seven fat years are occurring simultaneously
圣经中的7个荒年和7个丰年正在同时发生

Mar 3rd 2012 | BEIRUT | from the print edition


TYRE is a small province on Lebanon’s border with Israel, a place of poor tobacco farmers and tin-roofed shacks. Only about half the population has enough to eat. Many say that, in the past six months, somebody in the household has spent a day without food or gone hungry to bed. But there is something odd about the burden of malnutrition. While in hungry households just over a quarter of children under five are too short for their age—a classic symptom of malnutrition—a third are overweight, malnourished in the opposite sense. Tyre is suffering malnutrition and obesity simultaneously.

       提尔（Tyre）是黎巴嫩边境与以色列接壤的一座小城，这里有贫穷的烟农以及简陋的铁皮顶窝棚。全部人口中大约仅有一半能吃饱饭。许多人都说，在过去的6个月里，有家人曾经一天没有饭吃或者是饿着肚子上床睡觉。但是说到营养不良，有个现象比较奇怪：挨饿的家庭里，5岁以下的孩子中有大约1/4的孩子较同龄人矮小——这是营养不良的典型表现之一，但是却有1/3的孩子超重——营养不良的另一种表现。提尔正在同时经历着营养不良和过度肥胖。

This “dual burden” is growing everywhere, but nowhere as quickly as in the Arab world. Between 15% and 25% of Arab children under five are too short for their age and between 5% and 15% are underweight. Almost half of pregnant Egyptian women are anaemic, reflecting an iron deficiency often caused by poor diets. Yet a survey in 2006 reckoned that 30% of Egyptian adults were obese. Obesity estimates for Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were even higher: between 35% and 45%.

      上述“两极问题”正在各国逐渐增加，但是任何地方都赶不上阿拉伯世界的增速。5岁以下的阿拉伯儿童中，有15%至25%较同龄人矮小，有5%至15%体重过轻。埃及的孕妇中约有一半患有贫血症，通常是由于食物匮乏造成的缺铁性贫血。然而2006年的一项调查显示，埃及约有30%的成年人过度肥胖。而过度肥胖在约旦、科威特、沙特阿拉伯以及阿联酋的成年人中比例更高，介于35%至45%之间。



The most obvious explanation for this paradox is that the two problems exist in separate realms: obesity among the well-to-do, under-nutrition among the poor. Yet this is not the whole story. Obesity and malnutrition exist not only in the same country but within the same community, the same household and even, strange as it may seem, in the same person.

       对上述互相矛盾的现象最显而易见的解释是这两个现象分别存在于独立的人群中：富人过胖，穷人营养不足。但是事实并不完全如此。肥胖和营养匮乏不仅存在于同一个地区，还存在于同一个社区，同一个家庭，甚至最奇怪的是——同一个人的身上。

A study by Hala Ghattas of the American University of Beirut looks at three marginal populations in Lebanon: the villages of Tyre, a group of Bedouins and Palestinian refugees. All are relatively poor, but a third of the worst-off Bedouin were still obese and another quarter were overweight. In Tyre, some villages are largely unaffected; one, called Tayr Harfa, is many times worse off than its neighbours. Problems of under- and over-nutrition appear in the same communities.

       贝鲁特美国大学（American University of Beirut ）的Hala Ghattas研究了黎巴嫩的3个边缘族群：包括提尔的几个村子，贝都因人（Bedouin）和巴基斯坦难民。尽管所有的研究对象都比较贫困，但仍有1/3穷困的贝都因人极度肥胖，另有1/4的贝都因人超重。在提尔，某些村庄的大部分人情况正常。只有一个村——Tayr Harfa，情况比邻村严重好几倍，营养不良和过剩的问题在同一社区同时出现。

But how can they appear in the same household? It is largely because of the way the body reacts to changing diets. If a woman is severely malnourished in the womb or during her first two years of life, her metabolism will change permanently. She will store spare calories as fat—an insurance against future hard times. If 20 years later the family gets a more plentiful yet still poor diet (with a lot of calories but not many micronutrients, such as iron or vitamins) she will become overweight or obese, while her children will suffer nutritional deficiency, such as anaemia or blindness. They will be undernourished and she will be obese. As countries move from extreme poverty to middle-income status, this move from starvation rations to calorie-rich, nutrition-poor diets has become more common. In Egypt, 12% of children are stunted and have obese mothers.

       但这个现象为什么会出现在同一个家庭中呢？很可能是因为身体对饮食结构变化的反应。如果一位女士在胎儿时期或出生后的前两年里经历了严重的营养不足，她新陈代谢的方式将被终生改变。她的身体会以脂肪的形式储存多余的热量——以备未来艰苦时期使用。如果20年后，这家人的食物虽然更加丰盛了，但营养不良（富含热量但是微量元素不足，比如缺乏铁或维生素），她就会过度肥胖或者极度肥胖。而她的孩子们却会由于营养不足患贫血或失明。总之，孩子们营养不足，她极度肥胖。当一个国家从极度贫困发展到中等收入水平时，食物供给从忍饥挨饿到热量充足、营养匮乏的转变非常普遍。在埃及，12%的孩子发育迟缓，还有个过度肥胖的妈妈。

The mothers will not escape problems from nutritional deficiency. They still have an unhealthy diet. In Egypt, Peru and Mexico, about half the women with anaemia are overweight or obese. They are simultaneously over- and underfed: too many calories, not enough micronutrients.

       这些妈妈们无法逃脱营养不足问题的困扰。他们的饮食总是不健康。在埃及、秘鲁和墨西哥，患有贫血症的妇女中约有一半过度肥胖或者极度肥胖。他们同时经历着营养过剩和营养不良：热量太多，微量元素不足。