Chewing over the fat of the land

Normally, I have an intense dislike for reality TV, mainly on the grounds that I don't see why grossly talentless, stupid nobodies should clog the ether so that the main companies can avoid spending cash on decent programming.

Nevertheless, I was strangely drawn to this tale of a young woman who was so fat that she must have had difficulty seeing past the first of her copious collection of chins.

Well, it wasn't long before my annoyance button was pressed. Faced with a pathetically deferential reporter, the subject went to great lengths to explain how her predicament was a "disease" and that people just didn't understand how awful it was to be afflicted with such a crippling "illness".

Oh, all right. The fact that you resemble a cross between a dugong and one of those grubs they eat on I'm A Celebrity is nothing to do with your over-indulgence in the food department, then?

It's funny, but there's me thinking that there was some correlation between intake and tonnage.

Yes, I know I could be wrong, but I do have this suspicion that the risk of having a physique like a Blue Whale is not one of the more pressing matters in much of the Third World.

The issue of surplus flesh has never been far from the headlines in our neurotic, increasingly narcissistic society.

Back in the 1980s, barn-sized lesbians screeched that "Fat is a Feminist Issue". Man-ladies with cropped hair, flue-brush legs, Doc Martens and regulation denims carried placards, defying anyone to disagree.

Alternative comedy, too, was well represented with excess blubber, her imperial porkship Dawn French representing the entire distaff's area of surplus carbohydrate. This is probably why she was snapped up for the Chocolate Orange adverts.

I suppose she'll be doing cellulite - sorry cellular - phones next.

Anyway, "victims" of obesity, proud-to-be-fat lesbians and porker actresses may soon be seriously out of fashion. For as new figures reveal that 20 per cent of Britons are now hopelessly overweight, there are rumbling noises from the Government hinting that the present state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue.

So, this being New Labour, it came up with - then abruptly dumped - the only policy that its collective imagination could contrive.

Tax. Yes, if in doubt, tax it. In this case it was to have been a levy on products containing a high proportion of fat. Everything from hamburgers to pork pies could have been affected. However, there was a swift about-turn last week.

I suppose it only fitting a younger generation that seems intent on covering Britain with litter should live off a diet of junk, too. However, I suspect that this would not really bother our rulers that much, were it not for one crucial factor - the ever-burgeoning cost to the National Health Service.

Obesity is now the big health timebomb. Heart disease is presently overtaking cancer as the main killer, the incidence of strokes is increasing, and diabetes is not just a disease of the middle-aged but has begun to affect teenagers as well.

Britain faces the prospect of thousands of young people being struck down years before their time, drawing untold amounts of benefit from a system which many never contributed to in the first place.

No wonder Blair and Blunkett want the entire population of Eastern Europe to move here to do all the jobs when the EU admits 10 more countries in May.

For Britain's fat, lazy and dozy youth will soon be good for nothing, welded to couches watching TV or flopped on chairs playing computer games into the small hours.

Mind you, it's not all their fault. This generation of the damned has been utterly ruined by discredited teaching methods, educational whims, political dogma... and all overseen by the dead hand of bumbledom.

Don't run in the playground - it's dangerous. Don't walk to school - you might get run over. Don't go near the park at lunchtime - there may be perverts lurking.

This is the neurotic world of don'ts and more don'ts that has been created by a legion of fearful adults.

Here's another thing. Remember Margaret Thatcher the milk-snatcher? Well, that was the end of a great school institution, farewell to that plucky little third-of-a-pint chappie who pepped you up in the middle of every morning.

I remember it well. Come lunchtime, you were definitely in the mood for a piled plate of either beef or mutton, heaped spuds, cabbage... and all overwhelmed by a tsunami of onion gravy.

This would then be followed by spotted dick, semolina pudding or sponge cake drowned in that curious pink custard I'd never seen before or since.

You can say what you like, but this plain fare represented a square meal. And the entire lot would be worked off by a combination of energetic play, sport and the occasional punch-up.

For some working class children it was the main meal of the day. And the politicians voted it out of existence.

There were 90 children in my first year at the grammar school. Only one of them was what you would call fat, a boy called John Lee, who was immediately dubbed "Slim".

Every spare moment of my childhood - like that of thousands of others - was spent playing in the open air. It was kick-can in the spring, stone fights down the Old Mill during the long summer evenings.

Autumn saw long treks across the fields to collect wood for the Guy Fawkes' Night bonfire and as every winter saw at least one heavy snowfall, the sledge was regularly unhooked from that rusty old nail in the hovel.

And yes, we ran everywhere. Naturally.

Then there is the question of sports fields. Britain has been losing them at an alarming rate since the 1980s when developers started to move in and councils were quick to seize the opportunity to make a fast buck.

Everywhere, young people are under siege. The relentless drift away from exercise and nutritious sustenance, encouraged by a never-ending stream of "experts", into the world of junk food and computer entertainment exerts a grip of stranglehold proportions.

But the Government's main error is its lack of a holistic approach to this problem. For example, if truly awesome punishments were inflicted on thugs and perverts, the streets would be perceived to have become safer.

More youngsters could then walk in safety. This would result in a reduction of the school-run surplus cars and fleets of 4X4s that can be observed heading for the WRGS and Alice Ottley each term-time morning.

The roads might then become less hazardous and clogged with pollution. Town and city centres would then become more pleasant places. Children could then be re-educated in the ways of traditional play.

But most of all, domestic science could start to be taken more seriously in schools. Instead of being regarded as a free period in which ghastly concoctions are created to fits of giggles, this time could be spent teaching the most important skill of all - the ability to feed oneself properly.

Add gardening to that, too. Let's have youths breaking their backs doing a bit of digging, hoeing and raking. Not only will they see the fruits of their labours in the fullness of time, but there will also be less energy for vandalism and assorted yobbery...

The last thing Britain needs is more laws and New Labour-style taxes. What this nation requires is a complete change of consciousness.