I've been noticing that African immigrants in Mata are, to my knowledge and observation, very rarely, if ever, obese. We all know how relatively easy it is for one to put on extra weight. It only takes a few weeks of unhealthy lifestyle for it to happen.

Every time I go to Valletta I watch these immigrants roam about near City Gate, always eating junk food and drinking soft drinks. Because let's face it, where on Earth can you fill up your stomach with just a euro's worth of unhealthy pastizzi (cheese cakes) or mqaret (fried dates)?

I pass through Aldo Moro road and 13 December road in Marsa practically every day at different times from early morning to sunset, and I never see these immigrants walking from or back to their base. A number of them even have cars now-a-days. Now, whether they are hyperactive at night or not, that I don't know! One thing I know for sure is that in spite of thriving on fatty food and doing very little physical activity, they remain proportionally well built, and even slim in some cases.

The ones that are employed in the labour black market, especially in the construction industry, are easily identifiable that they have burnt all their day's calorie resources because they are usually covered in sweat and wearing clothes that produce white dusty clouds if you just pat them gently on their backs. But I am not referring to this group of over-worked immigrants. I am referring to the other group of immigrants who wear branded clothes and shoes. I am referring to the ones that roam all day long near City Gate, the same faces of whom I've been observing for the past two years.

From all this I conclude that there is probably a set of dominant genes that control obesity in these Africans and which are surely lacking in our fat nation! If my hypothesis is correct, my wish is that the off-spring born from Maltese-African couples continue to retain the same anti-obesity genes in dominant forms with further infiltration in the genetic pool of our nation.

C. Micallef

Fgura