BeautifulPeople.com, the dating and networking community that only allows 'beautiful' people to join, has thrown out over 5,000 members from around the world who put on weight during the recent holidays.

These expulsions took place after many members posted photos of themselves celebrating Christmas and the New Year - revealing that they have let themselves go.  The US, UK and Canada lost the most members.  No surpise for the UK as BeautifulPeople.com already reports that Britons are among the ugliest people in the world.

BeautifulPeople.com works by allowing existing members of the website to rate how attractive potential members are. Over a 48 hour provisional period the applicants, who just uploaded a recent photograph and a short personal profile, are rated by members of the opposite sex.  The voter have four options to describe how attractive they think the hopeful is - 'Yes definitely', 'Hmmm yes, OK', 'Hmmm no, not really' and 'NO definitely NOT'. 

Following complaints, BeautifulPeople.com moved to place thousands of users, who had already been voted onto the site, back in the rating stage. “The site’s managing director, Greg Hodge, pointed out that the fate of the exiled ‘chubby members’ had been democratically decided. ‘Their re-applications were reviewed by existing members and only a few hundred were voted back in,’ he said. ‘Over 5,000 were rejected.’

To add insult to injury, the site’s founder, Robert Hintze, said, “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”

Granted it's probably only a publicity stunt - but BeautifulPeople.com is doing a great job making itself the website that people love to hate.