Belgium's new Health Minister Maggie De Block

By Gareth Roberts, Oct. 14, 2014, Mirror.co.uk

A 20-stone politician put in charge of public health has come under fire for being too FAT for the job.

Among her duties as Belgium's new Minister of Public Health, Maggie De Block is tasked with tackling obsesity.

And that, say image-obsessed critics, is a joke.

The 52-year-old politician is hugely popular in Belgium, and was once tipped as a future premier.

But she was considered a surprise choice for the job as Health Minister in the new centre-right coalition which has just taken office.

And Maggie – who tips the scales at something over 20 stones – is not exactly setting a good example in a country where obesity is a problem, according to her detractors.

The anti-Maggie charge was led by Tom van de Weghe, a Washington-based correspondent for Belgium's VRT television station.

In a tweet he questioned whether she would be "credible" in her new post.

NOS, a top Dutch TV channel, likened her to a larger-than-life figure from a Rubens painting and said her "obvious corpulence" would cause "sniggering".