Lectured by Sisi on body weight, Egyptians respond with jokes

CAIRO — Egyptians on social media have been poking fun at comments from President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi calling out Egyptians for being overweight — the second time the former general has picked up on the subject in as many months.

When Health Minister Hala Zayed presented new numbers on the weight of Egyptians on Saturday, Sisi interrupted her.

“Why are we doing this to ourselves?” Sisi asked from the audience, referring to Egypt’s high obesity rate. He then spoke for almost 20 minutes about how Egytians should exercise more.

Since then, memes imagining a security crackdown on corpulence have multiplied. 

One photo of a woman being taken away by a police officer and telling him: “What’s wrong? I only gained 2 kilogrammes.”

Of about 17 million Egyptians who had their height and weight measured in a hepatitis C campaign, around 75 per cent were found to be overweight, Zayed said in her presentation.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that 63 per cent of Egyptians are overweight, including nearly 36 per cent who are obese, one of the highest rates in the world.

Sisi said he sometimes sees obese people and thinks: “Why is she not taking care of herself?” and “can you walk like that?” 

Nearly 30 per cent of Egypt’s population, which now numbers 98 million, live under the poverty line. 

There is a clear correlation between poverty and obesity, the WHO says. Obesity can lead to non-communicable diseases, which account for most deaths in Egypt, WHO’s Egypt office said.

Sisi, who has been pictured several times on his bike in sports gear, told a youth conference in November that too many students were overweight. At the same event, he triggered a social media backlash after telling citizens to “build [the] country” rather than fixating on sharply rising potato prices. 

His words hit a nerve with citizens struggling to get by following austerity measures brought in under an IMF-backed economic reform programme.

Sisi’s comments on body weight are likely to be viewed in a similar vein, said Timothy Kaldas, non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy.