A dating website for "beautiful people" says it has booted off 5,000 members for piling on the pounds over Christmas.

BeautifulPeople.com said it acted after users posted photos of themselves celebrating Christmas and the New Year - revealing they had "let themselves go". "We responded to complaints by moving the newly chubby members back to the rating stage. This is the same as having them re-apply," said Greg Hodge, the managing director. "Their re-applications were reviewed by existing members and only a few hundred were voted back in. Over 5,000 were rejected."

Most of those expelled came from the US and Canada, but nearly 900 were from Britain. The social networking site, which boasts 550,000 members worldwide, allows its members to decide on who should be allowed to join. Mr Hodge said: "Every year we see that some of our members from western cultures eat and drink to excess over the holidays and clearly their looks suffer," he said.

"The USA has been grossly over-indulging since Thanksgiving - it's no wonder that so many members have been expelled from the network. We hope they will be back after shedding the festive pounds. In the UK and Canada, Christmas and the New Year are all about over-eating, over-drinking and watching TV on the sofa." In an attempt to soften the blow to those given the boot, the website sent details of fitness centres where they could work off their holiday excesses.

How nice to hear of a website unafraid to make an utter arse of itself!


The queue for the fitness centre went around the block...

The original was here