譯/陳曉慈
在貧窮國家 愈胖可能貸款信譽愈高
In the world's wealthiest countries, the richer people are, the thinner they tend to be.
在全球最富裕的國家，愈有錢的人似乎愈瘦。
But in Uganda, one of the poorest nations, where nearly half the people eat fewer calories than they need each day, excess fat is often a sign of wealth and can help get a bank loan, according to an article in The American Economic Review.
但「美國經濟評論」的一篇文章指出，在全球最窮國家之一、近半數人民每日熱量攝取不足的烏干達，肥胖常是富裕的象徵，胖子想跟銀行貸款也比較容易。
It's not surprising that in places where food is scarce, obesity serves as a significant marker of wealth.
住在糧食匱乏地區的人民視肥胖為財富重要指標，這項發現並不令人意外。
But what the new study points out is that in poor countries, information is also scarce. And in those situations, loan officers use whatever bits of evidence they can find to help make critical economic decisions.
但這份新研究還指出，在一些貧窮國家，資訊也十分不足。在這樣的情況下，貸款專員只能運用他們找到的任何線索，協助自己做出重要經濟判斷。
"Given the scarcity of readily available hard information in poor countries, wealth signals, including obesity, play a crucial role in economic interactions where individuals seek to evaluate someone's wealth," said Elisa Macchi, an assistant professor of economics at Brown University.
布朗大學經濟學助理教授艾莉莎．瑪奇說：「貧窮國家的既有客觀資料稀缺，因此在經濟互動過程中，個人需要判斷某人的財富狀況時，財富線索就變得十分重要，包括肥胖。」
As part of her research, Macchi conducted tests with 238 loan officers at 146 financial institutions in the capital city of Kampala. She asked them to review applications from fictionalized potential borrowers whose accompanying photographs were manipulated so they appeared thin or fat.
作為研究的一部分，在烏干達首都康培拉，瑪奇對146個金融機構的238名貸款專員進行測試。她請他們瀏覽一些虛構的潛在貸款人資料，附上的照片經過修改，讓他們看起來較胖或較瘦。
It is not uncommon in Uganda for people to include a photo of themselves when submitting a loan application, and it can be one nugget of information that a loan officer uses to decide whether to even grant an applicant a first interview, Macchi said.
瑪奇說，在烏干達，人們在貸款申請表附上自己的照片，並非不尋常，而照片可能成為影響貸款專員判斷的關鍵資訊，讓他們決定是否提供貸款人首次面談。
She discovered that loan officers were more likely to rate the applicants as more creditworthy and more financially sound when the obese version of the photograph was attached.
瑪奇發現，若附上肥胖版照片，貸款專員比較會將申請人評為更有信用及財務狀況良好。
"The obesity premium is large, equivalent to the effect of a 60% increase in borrower self-reported income in the experiment," or an additional asset like ownership of a car, the study concluded.
這項研究的結論是，「肥胖附加價值很大，在實驗中，效果相當於貸款人申報收入增加了60%」，或擁有汽車等附加資產。
Historically, corpulence was prized in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Mauritania was once notorious for the custom of brutally force-feeding young girls to make them more marriageable — a practice referred to as gavage, taken from the French term for force-feeding geese to produce foie gras. Fat was considered both a sign of family wealth and a cultural ideal.
歷史上，部分撒哈拉以南非洲地區確實崇尚肥胖。茅利塔尼亞曾因一項習俗而惡名昭彰，就是粗暴的強制灌食年輕女孩，讓她們更好嫁人。這項作法被稱作強灌，源自法文中描述強制灌食鵝隻以獲得肥肝的術語。胖不僅是家族富裕的象徵，茅國文化也以胖為美。
Lately, obesity has become an increasingly worrisome health risk on the continent, a development that follows the trend in the richest nations where obesity is often correlated with poverty.
近來在非洲大陸，肥胖已成為一個愈來愈令人憂心的健康風險，這個發展與一些最富裕國家的趨勢一致，在那些地方肥胖往往與貧窮相關。
