According to Government figures, 1,000 people in the UK cross the line into obesity every single day of the week. A frightening figure.

That’s over a third of a million people a year who are more likely to suffer from heart disease and strokes, type 2 diabetes, respiratory problems, disturbed sleep, osteoarthritis and joint pains, infertility, obesity related cancers, depression . . . the list is so long that it makes me feel ill just reciting it to you.

But here’s one more unpleasant fact for you before we move on.

Average life expectancy is reduced by NINE YEARS by obesity.

People are classified as obese if their body mass index is over 30.

If it is over 35 you are classified as severely obese. And if it is over 40 you are very severely obese.

Mathematicians can work out their body mass index by dividing their weight in kg by their height in metres squared.

The rest of us can hop, skip and jump over to the BBC’s website where there is a BMI calculator for both imperial and metric devotees.

I’m not obese thanks to a BMI score of 27.92, but like so many other people, I’m heading in that direction.

Slowly but surely we are sleepwalking towards becoming a fat nation. Despite our (best?) efforts, we are basically losing the battle of the bulge.

Back in 1992, targets were set to reduce obesity levels, with the hope being that by 2005 fewer than 6% of men and 8% of women would be obese. Well we missed those targets by a country mile. By 2002, 22% of men and 23% of women were classified as clinically obese.

By projecting these trends forward, a third of all adults in the UK will be obese by 2020. But that’s only part of the story. That figure could be in excess of 50% according to the Royal College of Physicians because of huge increases in obesity among children.

And I could well figure in those statistics come 2020 if a) I am still alive (hope so!) and b) I don’t stop the slide now.

No more pies for me then.

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