(ODDITY CENTRAL) — Police stations all around Thailand are sending their chubbiest officers to a weight-loss camp as part of a nation-wide program aptly called “Belly Destruction”.
After the success of a two-week pilot program, police stations in Thailand have begun sending their fattest officers to the Central Police Training Center in the city of Pak Chong, to take part in an intense physical activity designed to adjust the size of their bellies.
Each station will periodically send two to three overweight policemen to the centre, where they will work out, ride bicycles and adopt a healthy, protein-rich diet to shed as much extra weight as possible.
The Belly Destruction program started gaining attention after photos of overweight police officers taking part in the daily exercise routine went viral online.
“There are so many problems if you’re a fat cop,” Senior Sgt. Maj. Sornpetch Chantarak, a dietary enforcer in the new program, said. “You work slow and move slow as you go tumbling about. That’s unacceptable if you’re an officer tasked with arresting criminals, since you have to be deft and go quickly.”
About 200 Thai police officers took part in the Belly Destruction pilot, and the results encouraged authorities to implement the program indefinitely.
According to local reports, policemen weighing as much as 200 kilograms managed to lose up to 60 kilos of extra weight, while slightly overweight ones (around 80 kg) shed up to 20 kg.
Judging from the photos, police officers sent to the camp have their heads shaved and have to strip down to the waist to expose their bellies. They are also reportedly handed individual ID cards where their weight before and after the program is recorded to track their progress.
The photos posted on the Love Police Facebook page got quite a lot of attention, with most commenters commending the officers for working hard to shed extra weight.
“It’s good you’re losing some. I always see cops chugging beer while patrolling. How are you supposed to catch criminals like that?” one Facebook user wrote.