I went to Mupedzanhamo flea market in Harare recently and saw women and men diving for customers, convincing them to buy some pills which are supposedly meant to enhance women’s bodies.
Saturday Dialogue with Ropafadzo Mapimhidze
The pills, called Apetito, are smuggled through the borders into Zimbabwe from countries in the north.
But do they really work? I also read about Yodi, the big bum pill on a Nigerian website called Aunty Nurse which said that it is no secret that the average Nigerian considers a big booty as an asset.
Just like the few Zimbabwean women I spoke to at the flea market, Apetito seems to be a quickselling drug that is believed to make women’s buttocks bigger.
“No woman wants to look thin like it used to happen years ago. They want to look big and hence they are taking these pills to grow bigger breasts and backsides,” said a vendor at this popular market.
Aunty Nurse said: “One day, in 2011, while working at a pharmacy store a woman walked up to me and handed me an empty Yodi drug sachet and said she wanted to buy Yodi (pronounced yaw-dee which when translated from Yoruba to English means ‘bring out the bum bum, buttocks, booty, yansh, etc.’)
“Women are doing this to attract the opposite sex because men have the tendency of making advances at curvaceous women,” says Aunty Nurse.
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Actually one man I spoke to at Mupedzanhamo said he would never date a thin woman.
He described the thin model figures as terrible and unAfrican and hence the reason why women had resorted to taking these pills to grow bigger.
“It is true that men prefer women with wider hips and bigger breasts, but I do not think that they should go to all those lengths to achieve this.”
The 30-day Yodi Butt Enhancement products are made from some African yodi root and evening primrose natural herbs, according to website Dior Divaris.
These pills grow fat around the thigh, butt, and hip area. The fat won’t come from other areas on your body, but from the food you eat. So calories that you eat while on the products will turn into fat that will be deposited to your desired areas of butt, hips, and thighs.
Normally the pills alone take 3-4 weeks before you start seeing a noticeable change, says information on the website.
Dior Divaris even has pictures of women before and after using Yodi that has resulted in a frenzy to buy the product.
But why would someone desire to have big buttocks when she is not naturally endowed? And don’t they have side effects? People taking these are definitely suffering from psychological problems like inferiority complex.
Aunty Nurse said: “On inspecting the sachet, I discovered the active ingredient in the drug was a compound called Dexamethsone.”
Dexamethasone is a drug classified under the class called Glucocortico steroids. It is used for severe allergies (when regular allergy medications are ineffective), hypercalcemia associated with cancer, thyroiditis and so on.
The tablet has never been indicated for booty enlargement. When Dexamethasone is abused the following results: Cushig’s syndrome, which is a rapid weight gain (especially in the trunk, back stomach) and moon face (fat on the shoulders and neck with a round moon-shaped face).
The other results include thin skin and stretch marks, fat around the buttocks, baldness, facial hair growth, insomnia, infertility, excessive sweating, depression and anxiety.
Senzeni, who wrote on a website called the Students Union had this to say: “Weight gain, you see, is considered a good thing. It is a symbol of prosperity and a sign that in the prevalent harsh HIV climate, one has managed to not only be of good health, but even to gain weight. In men, weight is a sign of affluence, especially if one has a potbelly. My friend often refers to the belly as a ‘success curve’ — the steeper the gradient, the higher the level of affluence.”
Buzzle, another website says though manufacturers claim that gaining weight is possible with the help of these pills, not all things can be fully believed.
These pills do help in a positive way towards weight gain, but it has to be accompanied with a healthy diet and exercise.
One has to understand that weight gain tablets are no magic pills. The nutritional content of a weight gain pill and a multivitamin tablet is almost the same.
Manufacturers may be repacking the multivitamins pills with a label of weight gain pills as there is a greater demand for them among people. Moreover, this policy helps them earn a good profit since these pills are three times costlier than multivitamin tablets.
The fact that pills to gain weight are actually multivitamin tablets does not mean that they are completely ineffective.
Some people may gain weight after consuming these pills. But there are still a lot of people who may not gain weight because of a high-level vitamin deficiency in their body.
Looking at all these facts, it can be said that it is better to buy multivitamin supplements instead, since the effects of both pills are similar. So what is the rush about Apetito? Feedback: [email protected]
