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Overweight people are often subjected to discrimination, demonisation and even abuse. But what are their critics really afraid of?

IT SEEMS it was one mince pie too many for the 5,000 people recently kicked off dating site BeautifulPeople.com. Cruelly dubbed “festive fatties”, they were shunned from the site for putting on weight over Christmas. Harsh it may be, but BeautifulPeople.com – which styles itself as “an online club where every member works the door”, and has a strict ban on “ugly people” – claims a democratic mandate for the worldwide chop. Who stays or goes is entirely down to the collective decision of existing members, who vote on whether individuals are sufficiently gorgeous to be worthy of inclusion.