The BBC Health website have launched a new way for us to obsess over our weights and compare our bodies to the people of 177 other countries this week. The completely healthy and reassuring global fat scale uses UN and health examination data on body types across the world to work out the mean BMI figures for individual countries. This then allows the reader, presumably killing time on their lunch break with a Big Mac and a Hot Apple Pie to hand, to find out their global fat standing in just a few clicks.
But wait, there’s more! Not only does the fat calculator tell you if your weight is above/below average nationally and internationally – making you feel like complete and utter shit in the process – it likens your body type to the body types of a different country (apparently, I am most like someone from the Philippines). The calculator is, needless to say, bizarre. In a world where people are already obsessed with how their bodies compare to the rich and famous, is it really necessary for the BBC to fuck with us all like this?
I used the calculator and found out that I “have a higher BMI than 50% of females aged 15-29 in the world” and that “it would remove 21,168,587 tonnes from the total weight of the world’s population” if everyone weighed the same as me. Oh.
Definitely have a little look at the website here, it’s interesting if nothing else. I’m off to Subway to get a footlong. Pricks.
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