Tradition and Limits: Polemical Construction of Body Size Among the Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Large body size is a major risk factor in the development of chronic diseases. However, Africans are reputed for appreciating large body size. Narratives of socially constructed knowledge of body size are seemingly nonexistent among the Yoruba. Hence, this research was designed to explore social construction of body size among the Yoruba. Relying on a triangulation of qualitative methods, this study reflects the evidence that though there are antecedents of traditional veneration of large body, the traditional Yoruba culture invokes frames of references that impose limitations on such veneration. Moreover, social construction of body size has undergone tremendous changes, which divide this construction along the traditional and the modern. The latter secures remarkable acceptance in contemporary Yoruba society. The reflection of this modern attitude on body size maintaining or reducing actions appear most significant in Yoruba culture.