When you move to another country, some questions/concerns occur to you in the first two minutes.

Can I speak the language? Can I find a place to live? Can I handle the climate? Can I handle the culture?

Will I be able to see TV from back home?

Bang, bang, bang. They pop into your head.

Then there are concerns that don’t occur to you until you’re on the ground, in country, living daily life.

Such as this one:

Will the United Arab Emirates make me fat?

There seems to be a semi-strong consensus among the expat community here — particularly the Western expat community — that living here leads to weight gain.

Our newspaper, The National, did a meaty piece on the topic (at least I didn’t write “big, fat” piece) a few weeks ago.

A batch of expats are quoted as saying they did gain weight while living here.  The common term for the phenomenon is, apparently, “the expat stone.”

(To explain: The English we speak here is Brit-driven, and although the Brits often use the metric system, they still have an affinity for a very old-fashioned system of weights that includes pounds and,  yes, “stones.” And one stone is 14 pounds. Thus, “the expat stone” is the notion that visitors here, most of them Brits, will gain 14 pounds if they stay long enough.)

To be sure, it is possible to envision just how you could gain weight here. The story reflects most of those possible problems.

A lack of exercise. This is a country where you risk sudden death just walking outside, 6-7 months a year. You are not going to jog when it’s 105 degrees Fahrenheit. You aren’t going to walk to work. This is a country with primitive public transport,  so you probably will drive … everywhere. And many (most?) expats don’t live in buildings with gyms or swimming pools.

So, you find it hard not only to exercise strenuously, you find it difficult even to do the walking you did back home en route to the nearest subway station.

Bad diet. What expats do, in the UAE, first and firmly foremost … is work. Late. Long hours. So you tend to eat a meal or two at the office, five or six days a week. Often picking up some tasty takeout that is less than ideal as healthy fare. As someone notes in the story, starches and more starches seem to be the focal point of food here. (And, we should note, some of us hit the hotel bars a bit too often and quaff a few pints of Guinness,  which isn’t a health nectar.)

Lack of home life. Not many expats come with the whole family. So there isn’t any regular dinner at home. And not much structure at all, when it comes to meals. There isn’t anyone cooking, generally. (Unless you’re making enough money to have a live-in maid/cook, and you’re home in time to eat dinner at some sociable hour.) So you grab something out of the fridge, and maybe some snacks.

Routines you fall into here … yes, I can see how it could lead to weight gain.

Also, as the story notes, the UAE has a very high rate of obesity. Lots and lots of tubby locals as well as expats. So maybe there is something in the air/water — and on the menu. (Though none of this applies to the guys from India, who remain astonishingly thin.)

I am happy to report that, two months in, I haven’t gained weight. Haven’t lost any, but I haven’t gained. That could be a function of two months in a hotel with a treadmill … as well as taking my own lunch to work 95 percent of the time. A couple of sandwiches, an apple, a Snickers bar, some yogurt … probably won’t turn you into the Pillsbury Doughboy. (Though I really ought to give up the fruit smoothies that are so cheap and so convenient from the canteen in the newspaper lobby.)

It’s something to think about. And since we ran that story, I’ve been paying more attention to what I eat, and when I eat it, and trying to make sure I get a bit of exercise and show a little restraint when it comes to those 8 p.m. food runs to the pizza joint or to the falafel stand.

Don’t want to go home with the expat stone.