8 Strange Wedding Traditions from Around the World

The bride should be fat to be considered more attractive

As the saying goes ‘the beauty lies in the eye of the beholder’ and the indicators of beauty differ from culture to culture. For example, in some Asian countries, skinny girls are considered more beautiful than those who are overweight. But in Mauritania, a country in Northwest Africa, the bigger a girl is, the more attractive she is considered.

Thus, there is a tradition in Mauritania, called Leblouh, according to which parents should send their young daughters to fat camps to gain weight. They have to eat a lot of food to gain extra weight and some of them are forced to do so.

In general, Mauritanian girls consume up to 16,000 calories per day and the idea of this custom is that the size of the girl is directly proportional to the space and love that she occupies in her husband’s heart. Moreover, some people believe that a fat body indicates a rich family because it means that they have money to buy food and eat everything they want. In addition, the man chooses his potential wife based on her weight.