Health festival drops 'Burger Boy' sculpture

A controversial sculpture known as the Barnsley Burger Boy will not be part of a health festival later this year after council chiefs said it should be scrapped. The 40ft effigy was to be burned during the Heart of Barnsley event in July, but attracted severe criticism from weight loss workers who said it "humiliated" fat people.

Barnsley Council and local primary care trust NHS Barnsley were responsible for the project, which was supposed to represent an obese child eating junk food. Under the original idea the sculpture would have been paraded through the streets before it was set on fire in a ceremony to be called Bye Bye Burger Boy.



Health workers said the burning of the piece had been designed to symbolise the "shedding of unhealthy elements of our lifestyles" and encourage people to eat better food.

The sculpture would have shown a fat boy in tight clothes sitting in an overflowing ashtray facing a table weighed down with burgers and cakes. Council leader Steve Houghton admitted the idea had been badly thought out, and said staff had now realised it could have caused offence.