THE obesity crisis is impacting the famous canals of Venice, where gondoliers have imposed a new limit on the number of passengers they carry.
Initially thought to be a measure to assist with COVID-19 social distancing, the move which cuts the maximum capacity from six people to five, is actually because "over the last 10 years or so, tourists weigh more," according to the president of Venice's Gondola Association, Andrea Balbi.
"Rather than having them step on a scale before they get on, we are limiting the number."
The move has been backed by Raoul Roveratto, president of another group of gondoliers, who said that with some nationalities "it's like bombs loading on.
"When the boat is fully loaded the hull sinks and water enters.
"Going forward with over half a ton of meat on board is dangerous," Roveratto added.
And while we're on the topic, an intriguing new study has found a close correlation between fat politicians and how corrupt they are in office.
Pavlo Plavatskyy from the University of Montpellier in France used machine learning to estimate the weight of 299 cabinet ministers from the 15 post-Soviet republics, and then compared this with World Bank and Transparency International corruption indicators.
He found average body mass was a "convenient proxy variable" for political corruption.
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