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Dutch TV Show That Asks If Women Are Fat Or Pregnant Sparks Outrage

Worst idea ever.

A Dutch TV show has come up with the worst concept ever.

The reality series “Neem Je Zwemspullen Mee” — which translates to “Bring Your Bathing Suit” — invites women on stage to stand on a rotating platform. They are then inspected by two teams of men who try and guess whether the women are “pregnant or just fat.”

Naturally, the series sparked controversy after the first episode aired on Sunday. On Twitter, viewers voiced their shock and outrage.

But that wasn’t the only offensive part of the show. To make matters worse, the episode also included another challenge where contestants had to guess whether a woman’s breasts were real or fake. And last year, when the show aired its pilot (the first episode), contestants had to guess if a person was Chinese or Japanese.

According to The Telegraph, the production company Kro-Ncrv defended the show in a statement saying that it was meant to challenge stereotypes.

“In this round, there are different prejudices like: is he a criminal or business man? Is he Dutch or a German, etc,” the statement read. “Through these satirical settings, we laugh off all forms of prejudices.”

Kro-Ncrv also added that they did not receive any backlash from the pilot, which has been online for almost a year. In fact, the network decided to create the TV series because the pilot was so popular online.

However, many viewers did not find the show entertaining and launched a petition to have it removed from TV. The petition argues that the series not only objectifies women and downgrades them to “pieces of meat,” but also suggests that “it is OK to shamelessly assess a person's body.”

So far, more than 2,500 people have signed the petition to ban the show.

While the petition makes good arguments, some Twitter users questioned why the women volunteered to be involved at all.

But regardless, many just couldn’t understand why anyone thought the show’s premise was a good idea.

“It amazes me above all a religious broadcaster chooses this type of format,” wrote one user.

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