Extra Wide Seats For The Obese Are Half-Price For World Cup
By Christy Strawser, digital director
Thinking about going to the World Cup in Brazil? Might want to grab a Big Mac on the way -- because if you can prove you qualify for seats meant for the obese, the seats are half price.
This is the seat for obese fans at the World Cup stadium in Rio: 50% discount on tickets if you have doctor's note pic.twitter.com/V9KkSx555s
— tariq panja (@tariqpanja) February 6, 2014
A journalist touring the facility for the World Cup discovered some different-looking seats in the mix and reportedly learned there are extra wide seats for the use of anyone with a body mass index of 30 or greater -- clinically obese -- and a note from their doctor.
Brazilian law requires that at least 1 percent of World Cup capacity be devoted to seats for fans with disabilities, including obesity. And those fans get seats for half-price.
About 36 percent of Americans over the age of 20 are obese -- more than any other large country in the world, according to the Centers for Disease Control. About two-thirds of Americans are considered overweight. By comparison, European obesity rates range from 8 to 25 percent.
A 5-foot-4-inch woman becomes obese at 173 pounds; a 6-foot-tall man hits obesity at 220 pounds.
About 600,000 foreign visitors -- presumably plenty of them Americans -- are expected when the World Cup kicks off June 12 in São Paulo and ends with the final on 13 July in Rio de Janeiro.
Looks like, they'll have a comfy place to sit.
But note that not all Brazilians are supermodels like Gisele Bundchen; the BBC reported from 2006 to 2011, the number of overweight Brazilians spiked from 42.7 percent to 48.5 percent.