Malaysia’s Soft Spot

As a new survey reveals, the nation’s waistline may have finally caught up with our obsession with food

By Nazreen Tajul Arif

My brother sleepwalks. Nothing overly unusual about that—except that he also eats when he does it. A typical scenario would be that he gets up, goes to the toilet and heads to the freezer for some ice-cream. He then sits in front of the telly to eat it. Then it’s off to bed again.

And he does this with his eyes closed the whole time. Weirdly amazing, but I kid you not. He could be pretending, but given his intention to shed some pounds, I seriously doubt it. More likely, he has an obsession with food, which he carries to his bed.

It is an obsession not unlike what the rest of us Malaysians have.

THE FASTING FARCE
Food has long been associated with Malaysian culture. We get together at mamak joints, roadside stalls, fancy restaurants and posh hotels—basically everywhere, for food. We’d go extra lengths to get the ‘best’ of one kind of dish, be it Penang’s passembur, Ipoh’s char kuay teow or Muar’s mee rebus. TV shows like Jalan-Jalan Cari Makan and Thirsty Traveler help us find that exact hot spot. And Malaysians are a diligent lot, refusing to quit till we’ve had our bit.

But during the festive season, food-based get-togethers rise to a whole other level. Take the current fasting month for instance. Despite the qualms and complaints about the overpriced buka puasa buffet spreads, people still flock to these places, lured into the trap of thinking that the month is incomplete without such lavish, sumptuous buffets. Taking an excessive, obscenely overloaded amount of food at one sitting shows how greed and gluttony rule over self-control and empathy. Ignoring the fact that fasting should be an act of jihad—refraining oneself from the state of indulgence—people instead resort to famine-like behaviour, treating the breaking of a fast as the reward at the end of a hunger strike.

It doesn’t help either that much of Malaysia’s festive delicacies are linked with tradition and legend. Tooth-achingly sweet Malay desserts like puteri mandi (bathing princess), tahi itik (duck’s droppings), badak berendam (swimming hippopotamus), tepung pelita (lantern’s flour) and batang buruk (hideous branch) have the power to trigger one’s curiosity and taste buds on the sole basis of their odd names. Ditto for those Indian sugar treats—many of which are supposedly made from 100 percent fresh cow’s milk—with names more exotic than a Bollywood starlet, such as moti choor ladoo, barfi, rasgulla, gulab jamun. Muruku is no longer an exclusive Deepavali delight; they are fast becoming a favourite party snack and movie munch. And Chinese mooncakes are said to represent family union, so eating them signifies a family’s strength—a family that eats together, stays together.

It should come as no surprise then, that in late September, a health survey conducted by pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis revealed that 54 percent of Malaysian adults are overweight. That’s right, statistics have confirmed what nasi lemak has long warned us about: thanks to our fascination with food, we are an obese nation.

CALORIE-CONTROL
Of course, to blame the trend solely on food would be unnecessarily presumptuous, not to mention rather inaccurate.

For one, waistlines do not have to expand come festive season. A friend, who recently managed to shrink into size 30 pants, has adopted the ‘Fasting vs. Raya Food’ diet. He doesn’t eat a lot during Ramadhan, as fasting teaches him to be resilient and to have self-control, but compensates by smoking more. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how his weight came off. But then come the first of Syawal (Hari Raya Puasa), he would tuck himself into all of the delish—ketupat, lemang, seruding, rendang—rewarding himself for being able to successfully restrict the stomach for a month.

Even the media is chipping in. The New Straits Times, which first published the aforementioned survey, ran a community service advertisement recently showing a plate with three measly dates—the only meal that the Prophet Muhammad had for breaking fast—along with the caption “Somewhere out there, this is all someone can afford for buka puasa today. If he’s lucky enough.”

Then again, our growth in size could simply be a case of genetics. As Shakira once said, hips don’t lie. Coming from a big-sized family, I have seen some dramatic bodily transformations among my family members. My dad and eldest brother—both hunks in their bachelor days—now make up the numbers of the ‘abdominally obese’, as the survey so aptly classifies. The majority of the ladies in my extended families have wide, ample hips—a trait perceived as attractive and appealing for some. Our Raya gatherings have seen us try, and fail, to resist the temptation of having second (or third, or fourth) helpings of the cuisine, only to be scrutinised by the larger-than-life makciks on how we would turn out eventually. In other words, exactly like them.

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Evidently, food has never just been about food. Some see it as an escape route. Fed up with annoying and infuriating relatives who come to visit? Just tuck yourself into your plate of curry whenever they drop by—after all, it’s not good to talk with your mouth full. Others use it as a channel for exercising their power. It is said that a kitchen is where a woman rules—and one ship can never have two captains. I have witnessed two equally good cooks practically tearing each other’s hair out over the ingredients of the perfect rendang. Lifelong friendships and even blood ties are broken over recipe debates.

But that’s not to say our appetites can’t be controlled. We don’t need statistics and NGO-sponsored advertisements to say what our mirrors remind us of: we are fat, and our diets play a part in that. And if I ever need a reminder to count my calories, I just have to get up in the middle of the night and watch my chubby, sleepwalking brother gulp down a whole tub of ice-cream. That’s de-motivating enough.