In most of the “civilized” world, a woman can’t be too thin. We worship thin, we abhor heavy. Not so the Hima tribe in Uganda.

I’ve just watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel about a young girl named Sheila whose family accepted cattle from a single neighbor in exchange for her as his wife. Once the cattle were delivered to her father, Sheila was put in virtual isolation for a four month fattening prior to her wedding.

The men of the Hima tribe like their women to be fat, very fat. Sheila spent four months eating and sleeping and gaining weight. The sad part is that Sheila wanted more from her life, she wanted to go to college, have a career, meet someone other than the man who her parents had agreed she would marry.

Instead of retelling it, here’s what another viewer said about this documentary when she viewed it last year.

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