Slim chance of losing our weighty crown...

THE FRIDAY THING: AS someone who once weighed 18 stone, thanks to lots of curries and gallons of beer, I have some sympathy for those portly folk who have helped to make Oldham Greater Manchester’s heaviest borough.

It is an accolade that will have the Oldham health police putting up their own blood pressure with exasperation.

I have, of course, made reference to the growing size of some Oldhamers in previous pieces. They are not, after all, difficult to spot, taking up two seats on the bus (and now the tram too) and waddling round Spindles-Town Square and the brilliant inside market no doubt looking for more to eat.

Being chunky is not something that is easy to hide, but the health police do, of course, have their own yardstick in the form of the Body Mass Index.

Apparently 69.7 per cent of Oldhamers aged 16 and over are overweight or obese and it has to be said that, without naming names, there are those who occupy a lot of space in the council chamber and are, therefore hardly setting a good example.

Surprisingly (well, it surprises me bearing in mind the walking and climbing I have done in the glorious fells) Cumbria, it turns out, is the fattest county in the country. Clearly they are not all keen on the fells, except to look at, of course.

And it will come as no surprise to you to realise that the slimmest, fittest and lowest BMI brigade in the country are in the snooty south and especially Kensington and Chelsea, where a meal consists of a half a tomato, two spinach leaves and a steamed shallot.

Alan Higgins, Oldham’s Director of Public Health and a model of slimness with a body mass index that could be well under 10, has the weighty task of trying to get Oldhamers to eat less, to eat more healthily, to take up some exercise that does not include a knife, fork or a spoon and to cut down on booze, cigarettes and chips.

So what do you think? Fat chance or no chance?