Urban black school boys like big girls‚ and they cannot lie.
The boys from several high schools revealed to Primose Manyathi that they preferred their girlfriends and future wives to be fat.
Manyathi is a Master's graduate in dietetics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Her research aimed to establish how male preferences in body weight are leading to a high prevalence of obesity among urban black South African women.
The teenage boys told Manyathi that they preferred their sisters to have a normal body mass index (BMI) for health reasons. But their preference changed for their love interests‚ who they wanted to have "a normal weight to an overweight shape". They cited sex appeal as the main reason for this.
They were divided on their preferences for their mothers.
"Boys from one school preferred their mothers to have a normal BMI as it symbolised health‚ while scholars from another school preferred their mothers to be obese as they thought that was a healthy shape‚" Manyathi said.
"The causes of obesity are complex and interrelated. Though some of the causes have been researched in South Africa‚ not enough researchers have looked at how the Black male preference for particular female body shapes influence this prevalence."
Manyathi said her findings required further investigation among black men during later stages of their lives to get a full picture of body size preferences.
She graduated on Thursday and plans to enrol for a doctorate in food security next year.
