The weighty issue of obesity

THE FRIDAY THING: IT’S probably not the best time of year to ask, but how’s the weight today?

Couldn’t face another mince pie or roast potato? Got a few more bumps and lumps you’re trying to hide under that new Christmas woolly? Well you’re not alone.

The trouble is that although we can see we are getting fatter, most of us are in denial. Even those among us who have to fit roller skates to their bellies so they can push them down to the chippy can delude themselves that they are “big boned”.

According to the Health Plus Poll organised by the slim and beautiful people at Bupa more than a quarter of people in Britain are clinically obese, yet only one in seven can put their bingo arms up to admit it.

The spokesman for the National Obesity Forum, the unbelievably named Tam Fry (surely he should be running a Scottish takeaway selling Mars bars in batter) says that it’s not only fat people who don’t recognise themselves as being overweight but health professionals can’t tell the difference between a healthy weight and an unhealthy weight either. Tam says that family doctors could do more to help if they were honest with patients, presumably announcing; “come in fatty number four, if you can get through the door” over the surgery tannoy.

I suppose the only comforting element to this is that while we are nearer the bottom than the top of most international league tables, when it comes to being overweight we are fourth in the world, behind America (obviously), Saudi Arabia and Australia.

One solution could be a new tax We tax folk more for the size of their houses, so why not tax people for the amount of extra space they need in the chippy queue or on the bus.


I WAS rather hoping that the scientists in Cern would discover the so-called God particle on Christmas Day. After all, it was Christ’s birthday (for those who believe in such things) and it would have been encouraging to have his dad putting in an appearance on the same day.
It would not, of course, have satisfied the politically correct brigade who want their god, or indeed gods, to be doing an impression of Tommy Cooper’s famous hat sketch, swapping a heavenly crown for a turban or a tea towel or any other kind of titfer that has religious connections, however obtuse (think, for instance, Darth Vader’s helmet).

The other thought is, if the smart Alecs searching for the God particle don’t know what it looks like because, obviously, no one has ever seen it, how will they know it when it appears. It’s not, after all, likely to be saying its prayers, or is it?


FINAL WORD: The more optimistic (or should that be misguided) among us look to the start of a new year with a large glass of something fizzy and a barrel full of hope. Not so this time.
Millions of people unemployed or facing unemployment; alarming numbers of young people without a job and unlikely to find one; costs rising; real incomes falling and fear and uncertainty at every turn.

The only thing we will celebrate about 2012 will, as with 2011, be its end.