Asia, Southeast

Until recent times, there has not been a serious problem of obesity in Southeast Asia with the diet generally being relatively good, and also nonsedentary lifestyle ensuring that most people were able to get plenty of exercise. Most early imagery of humans tends to show relatively well-proportioned bodies. However, there are some early representations of human-like figures, such as that of the seated Buddha, where the people are slightly overweight, and certainly not obese, being shown as a sign of contentment.

There is little evidence of obesity in Southeast Asia in medieval times, although it did undoubtedly occur. During the period of French colonial rule in Indochina, the increased prosperity as well as the increase in the sedentary lifestyle for the wealthy did result in a rise in people who were overweight, and even a number who became obese. This led to the tradition that obesity became associated, in the public imagination if nowhere else, with gluttony and also, to some extent, political corruption.

In Cambodia, one of the obese politicians, Trinh Hoanh, for many years a prominent journalist, was one of the men who plotted the overthrow of Prince [Page 54]Norodom Sihanouk in March 1970, was also highlighted as being corrupt. Several other political activists of the 1960s and early 1970s who were also notably overweight included the Communist Poc Doeuskomar, the Royalist secret police chief Kou Roun, prominent member of Parliament Hoeur Lay Inn, Laau Bounpa, Republican Dy Bellon, and Khaou Bun Sun (brother of millionaire developer Khaou Chuly). From the Royal family, the sisters Princess Pinpeang Yukanthor and Princess Pengpas Yukanthor were both overweight, and also two of the wives of Prince Sihanouk, Princess Sisowath Pongsamoni and Princess Mam Monivann, both became overweight during the early 1970s along with Prince Sisowath Monireth, a former prime minister and uncle and adviser to Sihanouk.

Agriculture in Vietnam: The traditional diet and nonsedentary lifestyle of Southeast Asia has prevented obesity from becoming a significant problem. However, with modern trends toward more sedentary jobs and available food, obesity is on the rise in this area.

With the privations in Cambodia from the mid-1970s, it was not until the tourist boom from the 1990s that resulted in an increase in deep-fried takeout food, an increase in prosperity, and a significant decline in manual work, which led to a significant prevalence of overweight and obese Cambodians not just in the capital Phnom Penh, but throughout increasing parts of the countryside. A survey in 2005 by King et al. of Centre Européen d'Étude du Diabète, Strasbourg, France, showed that there were higher levels of obesity in Kampong Cham compared to Siem Reap, and this also coincided with much higher levels of impaired glucose intolerance and hypertension in Kampong Cham compared to Siem Reap.

In Vietnam, obesity was generally associated with wealthy businessmen and corrupt politicians in southern Vietnam during the French Indochina War (1946–54) and then the subsequent U.S. involvement in Vietnam, with the increasing availability of Western-style food and drink. From the end of the Vietnam War until the tourist boom from the early 1990s, obesity was not a problem, but it has become important with the easy availability of fatty food and the more sedentary lifestyle followed by more and more urban Vietnamese. Much was made of the overweight of former emperor Bao Dai (1913–97) who was slim when he ascended the throne in 1926 and during the 1930s, but put on weight in the 1950s and 1960s.

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