This article delves into various aspects of health and cultural perceptions among African populations, drawing from a range of studies. It covers topics such as body image preferences, average shoe sizes, and the prevalence of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), providing a comprehensive overview of these interconnected themes.
Body Image and Preferences
Body image plays a crucial role in influencing health practices, especially with the increasing impact of globalization and acculturation. A study involving African immigrants in the United States revealed that the consensus from the 20th century, which favored larger body sizes as signs of health, beauty, and prosperity, is evolving.
In contrast to earlier guidelines, the 1998 BMI guidelines do not differ by gender. As such, governments do not officially track shoe sizes. In our cohort, we found 86% of the Africans living in America wanted to be either normal or low range overweight.
Participants were asked to choose two silhouettes from the Stunkard Figure Rating Scale: one for their preferred body size and another for their perceived body size. The silhouettes corresponded to different BMI categories:
- Underweight: 1 and 2
- Normal weight: 3 and 4
- Overweight: 5, 6 and 7
- Obesity: 8 and 9
Interestingly, no participant chose obese silhouettes as their preferred body size. A significant portion, 75% of women and 60% of men, preferred normal weight silhouettes. Furthermore, 11% of women and 26% of men chose overweight silhouettes as their preferred body size. Overall, 86% of both women and men preferred to be either normal or overweight. These findings indicate a shift towards acceptance of smaller body sizes, influenced by globalization and acculturation.
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However, there is an additional area of concern with globalization and acculturation. Dissatisfaction because body size was too large occurred in 78% (135/174) of women and 53% (126/238) of men. Fourteen percent of the participants in our study chose as their preferred body size a silhouette in the underweight category. Understanding the attitudes of Africans towards body size is important because these attitudes affect health behaviors.
Fig.1. Preferred Body Size (A) Women; (B) Men.
Body Image Concerns Among African American Women
The study also examined body image concerns among African American women, highlighting unique issues related to beauty and body image. A total of 31 African American women participated in focus groups, revealing several key themes.
Themes included: sacrifice, ignorance/racial microaggressions, and validation and invalidation by others, thick/toned/curvy as optimal, hypersexualization, and being thin is for White women. In the past and still today, Black women’s bodies and beauty have largely been devalued and rejected by mainstream culture, which overvalues the European aesthetic and undervalues the esthetic of other racial/ethnic group with of exception of exoticizing them (Banks, 2000).
It is possible that issues related to body satisfaction and beauty for Black women are tied to how they feel about their hair. Issues related to body image may arise because one is constantly striving towards a beauty ideal. They may have to contend with ideals of beauty that favor European ideals (Craig, 2002). As a result, African American women spend a significant amount time and finances on their hair.
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Skin tone is another facet of beauty and body image that may have significant implications for African American women. Falconer and Neville (2000) identified factors such as African self-consciousness and skin color satisfaction as uniquely related to African American women’s body image satisfaction. Related to racism, colorism is a system where individuals of color with lighter skin are perceived more favorably compared to their darker-skinned counterparts (Hill, 2002; Hunter, 2002; Wilder & Cain, 2011).
The overall importance of hair to general body-image was highlighted repeatedly in the focus groups as being of great importance to Black women. The respondent quoted below describes her experience when a White secretary at her current job microaggressed against her. One participant reported that her hair influenced her self-confidence as a whole: “when your hair is right, you just have better confidence in yourself and it’s just a big thing for the hair to be straight.
More research is needed to better understand what factors are relevant to African American women’s beauty and body image. Because quantitative measures of body image tend to be normed on middle-class White women and therefore limited in their scope, Lovejoy (2001) called for an increase in qualitative studies as a means to tap into the social and cultural underpinnings of body image.
The domains identified present answers to the first three research questions. The themes of ignorance/ racial microaggressions, within the larger domain of hair, refers to the rhetoric concerning Black women’s hair. It emerged as the most frequent and important body image domain for women (n=133).
Table 1: Frequency of Themes in Body Image Domains
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| Domain | Theme | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Hair | Importance of hair | 133 |
| Skin Tone/Colorism | Preference for lighter skin | Variable |
| Body Type | Curvy/Toned ideal | Variable |
| Messages/Sources | Media influence | Variable |
Average Shoe Size
It can be difficult to determine the average shoe size in a single country, let alone the collective average shoe size of the world as a whole. One complication is that unlike life-changing indicators such as Gross National Income (GNI) or cancer survival rates, shoe size is not considered a vital statistic by the various governments of the world. Another more important complication is that there are many different scales for shoe size currently in use all over the world.
The average shoe size of different countries is relatively similar across the world. It has been estimated that the average global shoe size among adults is 9-12 for men and 7-9 for women (both US sizes). Average shoe sizes vary only slightly by region (and often in parallel with average height).
For example, a men’s size 10 shoe in the United States is a size 9 in the United Kingdom, between the sizes 42.5 and a 43 in Europe, and between 270 and 275-277.5 in the Mondopoint system used in Russia, Japan, China, and several other predominantly Asian countries.
The record for largest shoe size is widely believed to have been located in Venezuela, home of the Guinness Book of World Records holder for man with the biggest feet, Jeison Orlando Rodriguez Hernandez. The woman with the largest feet in the world is Tanya Herbert, an American whose right foot measures 33.1 cm (13.03 in), a size 18 in US women’s sizes. The adult with the smallest feet in the world is widely believed to be Jyoti Amge, an Indian woman whose feet have been measured at only 3.7 inches long.
KSHV Prevalence in Cameroon
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV/HHV-8) is the causal agent of all forms of Kaposi sarcoma. Areas of high endemicity, corresponding to areas of classic and endemic KS have been reported [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]. Molecular epidemiology of the variable K1 region identified five major subtypes exhibiting a clear geographical clustering. We studied 2,063 persons (967 females, 1,096 males, mean age 39 years), either Bantus (1,276) or Pygmies (787).
Seroprevalence, as well as the anti-LANA antibodies titres, were higher in Bantus (43.2%) than in Pygmies (27.6%) (P<10−4), independently of age. KSHV anti-LANA seroprevalence was of 37.2% (768/2063), with a significant increase with age (P<10−4) but no difference according to sex. We generated 29 K1 sequences, comprising 24 Bantus and five Pygmies. They exhibited neither geographical nor ethnic aggregation. These sequences belonged to A5 (24 cases) or B (five cases) subtypes.
The present work aimed at gaining new insights into the KSHV epidemiology and genetic diversity in Cameroon, in Western Central Africa. The present epidemiological report shows a very high KSHV seroprevalence in the two rural populations studied. Furthermore, our study demonstrated that KSHV is highly prevalent in children. Serologic detection of anti-LANA antibodies was done by indirect fluorescent assay using KSHV positive and EBV negative BC3 cell line expressing only Latent-associated Nuclear Antigen as described, [37], [53] using diluted plasma (1∶40, 1∶80, 1∶160) deposited on BC3 cells.
The overall KSHV sero-prevalence in the study was high (37.2%, 768/2063) and significantly increased with age (p<10−4), but was not different according to sex, (37.6% (413/1096) in males and 36.7% (355/967) in females (p = 0.68). This is consistent with a non-sexual acquisition of the virus.
KSHV seroprevalence was quite surprisingly found higher in Bantus than in Pygmies. Indeed, we expected a higher prevalence in Pygmies as they have a lower “living standard” than the surroundings Bantus. While in African population, non-sexual transmission of KSHV is considered as the major mode of viral acquisition, sexual transmission is likely to contribute to further viral spread in adults [3], [13], [63].
Fig.2. Geographical distribution of KSHV seroprevalence in studied areas of South Cameroon.
The current study tested 2063 individuals (967 females, 1096 males) originating from rural areas of the Center, the South and the East regions of Cameroon. The overall KSHV sero-prevalence in the study was high (37.2%, 768/2063) and significantly increased with age (p<10−4), but was not different according to sex, (37.6% (413/1096) in males and 36.7% (355/967) in females (p = 0.68).
Table 2: KSHV Sero-prevalence in Cameroon
| Population Group | Sero-prevalence (%) |
|---|---|
| Bantus | 43.2 |
| Pygmies | 27.6 |
