The #BellyButtonChallenge Is the Dumbest and We're All Monsters

Are you ready for yet another inane and completely arbitrary method of determining whether or not you’ve got a #bikinibody? It seems that the thigh gap is out and we’ve moved on to the #bellybuttonchallenge. We are monsters. We deserve nothing.

Via People magazine:

The #BellyButtonChallenge is taking the Web by storm, based on the idea that being able to touch your belly button from behind is an indicator of good health and being at an ideal weight.

What these poor, confused souls are saying is that being able to wrap your arm behind your back—risking a torn rotator cuff—and around your waist means that you have reached an ideal weight.

Again: Wrapping your arm all the way around your body is somehow a sign of beauty.

One last time for the cheap seats: People think that simply being able to contort your body says something about your health and not just that you have long arms.

According to the Daily Mail, the challenge started in China and seems poised to make a splash here in the United States because we are idiots. Obviously, the idea is dumb as shit. Here are some completely unnecessary quotes from dietitians explaining why this stupid, stupid challenge is so goddamn stupid.

“This is just silly,” Dr. Keith Ayoob, registered dietitian and associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, tells PEOPLE. “You can be perfectly healthy without being able to do this. It addresses flexibility, but even then only one aspect of it.”

“Even if you were flexible and slender enough to pull this off, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in perfect health, as waist-circumference is only one indicator of health,” adds Karen Ansel, co-author of The Calendar Diet: A Month by Month Guide to Losing Weight While Living Your Life. Ansel does note that having belly fat is linked to diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.

The one good thing is that the tag #thebellybuttonchallenge only has 49 posts associated with in on Instagram, so that’s a sign that we as humanity might have a chance.