For Chris Eubank Jr, the cost of professional boxing not going metric is £375 000

Chris Eubank Jr. has reportedly been fined for being “0.05 lb overweight” at the weigh in for tonight’s middleweight boxing match with Conor Benn.

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Why the Metric Martyrs were wrong

Over twenty years ago, a group of market traders were prosecuted for using imperial measures (without showing the equivalent in metric units) and using unauthorised scales that could only measure in imperial units. Newspapers called this group the Metric Martyrs after Chris Howell, then weights and measures spokesman for the Institute of Trading Standards Administration (today the Trading Standards Institute), said that they could martyr themselves if they wanted to. As Ministers are thinking about allowing traders to choose imperial or metric units, we look at what is wrong with the Metric Martyrs’ arguments for freedom of choice in measurement usage.

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Why do so few Britons use kg for body weight?

Britons tend to use grams and kilograms for a lot of things, including cooking recipes, gym equipment, commercial products and retail sales. However, they predominantly use stones and pounds for weighing adults and children and use pounds and ounces for weighing babies. Few use kg despite the fact that the NHS uses kg internally for body weight and BMI calculated by body weight in kg divided by height in metres squared. And despite the large number of everyday basic food products you can find in supermarkets that come in 1 kg packages.

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Mutual incomprehension in diet conversation

It appears that the UK measurement muddle lingers on in the field of nutrition and diet. Ronnie Cohen reports a recent incident, and draws conclusions. And what about stones – surely they belong on the beach and not on our weighing scales?

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Why can’t weights and measures be left to the free market?

There have been recent reports in the press a butcher in Devon has started to sell meat in pounds and ounces after the UK had voted to leave the EU in a national referendum on 23 June 2016. This butcher is now giving customers the choice to buy meat in pounds and ounces or in grams and kilograms.

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