Ghanaians react to ‘unsatisfactory’ description of the president by the New York Times

Two days ago, a health-related article was published by renowned American News Agency New York Times on obesity. The article sought to look at the causes of obesity and based their research on Ghana’s own franchise of America’s Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

In addition to indicating that having a meal at the popular restaurant was a ‘social status’ the report called President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ‘round-faced’ and ‘overweight’. That portion of the article was captioned, “Like many of his countrymen, the round-faced president himself is overweight”.

Many Ghanaians did not take kindly to the description given to the Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Army and took to their social media handles to express their displeasure at the distasteful words used.




Many people argued that describing someone as obese or overweight in the Western world was seen as an insult and many people took offence in that.

The article also insinuated that even though the president was concerned about the increasing number of fast food restaurants in the country, very little was being done to avert the risks that come with eating junk food.

Some social media users had this to say:

Source: yen.com.gh