Superdrug recently announced they are dropping their controversial celebrity weight ‘scales,’ after criticism from BEAT, the UK’s leading eating disorder charity
Superdrug, Britain’s second largest beauty and health retailer thought they might have had the solution to the country’s growing obesity problem in the form of a scale that measures your weight in celebrity. If you’re tilting your head towards the screen with a perplexed look on your face, you are not alone.
The scale that was set to launch allowed consumers to measure their weight against that of Rihanna, Khloe Kardashian, Kate Middleton, Cheryl Cole, and Beyonce. When you would step on the scale, these celebrity names would flash between your feet at different weights.
Cheryl Cole is the lightest on the scale at 8st, the mid-range of the scale is Khloe Kardashian at 12st 11lb, Queen Latifah at 14st, and Melissa McCarthy at 18st. Other celebrities occupy other weights. For example, if you weigh around 9st 5lb you are considered to weigh between a Beyonce and a Rihanna.
Superdrug launched the scales in hopes of bringing down the barriers that stop people talking about and managing their weight effectively. About 40 percent of the UK population admit to avoiding stepping on bathroom scales each morning. In addition, about one in three people are unhappy with their current weight. Because many females refuse to tell anyone their actual weight, the scales are designed to take pressure off of that idea, they claimed.
‘Our new scales are just one of the ways that the health team here are helping our customers to be more open about discussing their health needs with our in store healthcare professionals,’ a Superdrug spokesperson said before the scales were dropped.
BEAT, an eating disorder charity, weighed in on Superdrug’s new idea of weight control:
‘This type of exploitation of the most toxic aspect of celebrity culture is just wrong in so many ways,’ said a spokesperson for BEAT. But this organization wasn’t the only company to voice their disapproval.
‘I am very concerned with the concept of celebrity weighing scales. As a nutritionist, I have no objection to women weighing themselves in kg- this is commonplace on normal scales and many women chose the metric method of weight, for example in France and Germany,’ said Lorna Driver-Davies, a nutritionist at the NutriCentre.
Driver-Davies said that comparing your weight to anyone is an ‘unhealthy way to judge your weight, so a comparison to celebrities is even worse.’
The scales don’t take into account body fat percentage, BMI, or waist and hip measurements, and promote an unhealthy idea of weight management and body image. In addition young girls are incredibly influenced by celebrities and introducing these scales at a young age could make eating disorders more prevalent.
‘Not only is this concept deeply unscientific but also I believe it would encourage even more insecurity and anxiety about weight which is a sad situation,’ Driver-Davies said.
Introducing this sort of scale is just another attempt to body-shame people with already low self-esteems and in addition, make women and girls think that they have to look like a celebrity to be fit.
Healthista weighed in on this preposterous idea and realized that it’s near impossible to look the same as the celebrity you ‘weigh’ because height isn’t taken into account.
If someone is 5’0, but weighs the same as Beyonce, who is 5’5, there is no way the shorter girl will look the same as her chosen celeb.
Not only do we think that is an unhealthy alternative to managing your weight the normal way, doesn’t it sound a little funny to say, ‘I weigh Beyonce?’
Whoever let this idea go beyond brainstorming stage should be sacked. Just us?
What’s your reaction to this crazy idea?
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