Why obesity is a growing problem in India – diet, aversion to physical work and old idea that if you’re fat you must be prosperous

Vibha Wasandi doesn’t know what to blame for her weight: the fact she may have inherited a genetic predisposition to obesity because her mother and grandmother were both obese, or whether it was because she had three caesarean sections in five years.

“All I know is that I walk around the house a lot, eat small portions of healthy food, don’t drink alcohol or have fried snacks and I’m still obese,” she said.

Wasandi, 62, has given up on diets. “I don’t think they have a lasting effect. You have to just have a healthy lifestyle every day. That’s what I try to do,” she says.

Although she has a maid and cook in her large New Delhi house, Wasandi keeps moving around, doing many chores herself, and walking the dog. Luckily for her, her only ailment is diabetes. No hypertension. No joint problems due to weight. No heart issues.

In her eating habits, Wasandi is unlike most of the other 30 million obese Indians, according to medical journal The Lancet in 2016. (By 2025, this number is expected to pass 70 million.) She limits her intake of food and does not plan to have bariatric surgery. But she supports the demand made in March by doctors at a conference in New Delhi urging the government to classify obesity as a disease, rather than a cosmetic problem. That way, bariatric surgery will be covered – as it is in many other countries – under medical insurance.

“I am lucky so far, but if I developed weight-related medical issues and had to go in for bariatric surgery, I would want it covered by my insurance,” she said.