The condition known as “Delhi belly” is familiar in this part of the world, a reference to a form of traveler’s diarrhea, in this case picked up while in India (capital: New Delhi).

It’s the regional equivalent of Mexico’s Montezuma’s revenge.

A story in The National today, however, is about another form of Delhi belly — those being carried around by many of India’s newly prosperous, too-well-fed burghers.

The story suggests that a surge in obesity in India is due to overeating and poor dietary choices. The “gifts” of disposable income.

Also, people who sell clothes suggest that Indians carry their extra weight differently than, say, Westerners, with much of it in extra-large bellies. No. Really.

Here are the key segments of the story.

“An increased prevalence of obesity and diabetes may have roots in nutritional deprivation that goes back centuries.

“Poverty and food shortages primed Indian bodies over generations to get by on less, favoring individuals withe genes that made them more efficient at storing fat …

“South Asians have a greater propensity to store fat around the waist, according to a review published in the International Journal of Obesity in February 2011.

“That means obese Indians tend to have a ‘disproportionately large’ belly that makes tailoring essential.”

That is where the story gets back to its starting point — that obese Indians can’t just buy clothes off the rack, because their fat is distributed differently, and that retailers are beginning to address the issue with individual tailoring.

Overall, much of the developed world would do well to follow the middle-class Indian’s diet.

When grocery shopping, here in the UAE, local Indians often will buy enormous quantities of vegetables; many are vegetarians, after all. The several Indians with whom I work at The National are thin ranging to really thin. (I can think of only one individual in local journalism who is on the jumbo side.)

But with growing affluence back in the home country comes growing caloric intake … and, apparently, misshapen bellies in Delhi — and Kolkata and Mumbai and Pune …

The new Delhi bellies.