There's a disturbing dichotomy in the fact that, while the Western world idealizes and rewards rail-thin figures on women (au revoir Fashion Week!), halfway across the world in the rural reaches of the tiny Islamic republic of Mauritania, women are being tortured into plumpness. The idea is that a woman's size is proportional to the size of her husband's love for her. And while Mo'Nique made twos of threes among us warm to the idea of a hunky African prince finding a happily ever after with his plus-sized Cinderella, the truth lies closer to Best In Show.

By this system of logic, her husband loves her so much that he sees no devastation in plucking her from her family while she's young as five years old, and has her shipped off to camps during school holidays, where she is force-fed to the point of sickness by militant matrons -- all without prior knowledge. Once there, the girl is led to believe that her fatness will lead to happiness. Her future husband's love being so boundless leads to the pre-colonial practice of "Leblouh" -- which also sees girls consuming their vomit if their bodies reject the abundance of food. They're fattened up to be married off as soon as possible, a process hastened by the matrons rolling the girls' legs with sticks in order to break down muscle tissue.

This has even given way to a rise of specialists who receive payment for fattening up young brides-to-be. A regular diet includes eating over four pounds of millet mixed with two cups of butter and drinking 20 liters of camel's milk. Typically, a 15 year-old girl ultimately ends up looking twice her age, weighing well over 150 pounds. The resurgence of this practice comes after years of notable advances in Mauritanian women's rights, all being set back considerably by a military coup that overthrew the country's first freely elected leader last year. Although activists are emerging against the movement, one saying, "Now that the era of globalization has come, the phenomenon of Leblouh has become meaningless and must disappear, exactly as its age has disappeared." The solution is simple but will probably remain elusive forever, whether enforced by arbiters of beauty from fashion houses or farm villages: Let them eat/not eat cake at their discretion.