Obesity, it's big, but it's not clever.

The news report that within a decade one in four men in the U.K will be clinically obese is frankly horrifying. It's not just the health of the individuals that is behind the warnings but the cost to society and the country in general. More obese people means more fat related illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and the pressure (no pun intended) it will put on the health service.

I know what it means to be overweight, following a serious knee injury when I was 24 I had to give up football and the idea of participating in any sports that involved prolonged running. I spent six months in rehab and the first training session after being given the all clear my leg locked and I was back to square one. As a result of this I didn't do any form of exercise other than walking to the paper shop (providing it wasn't raining) for the best part of five years. I then took up golf and was steadily reducing my handicap until I suffered two prolapsed discs in my back followed by a cracked vertebrae.

I suddenly went from somebody who would go out running or cycling if I put on a couple of pounds to doing nothing, combined with which I have been, for all of my adult life, desk bound in terms of work.

A combination of my heart problems (which wasn't weight related) and diabetes (which is) has seen me regularly visiting the gym and I have managed to lose two stone in eighteen months - okay it may not make me slimmer of the year but I look better and feel better about myself.

The only person I see regularly from my schooldays is a client and we were recently discussing weight and overweight people. She is the same weight as when she left school in 1976, I am now four stones heavier. We could only think of four people from our school year who could be classed as overweight, so much has changed over the last thirty years in society and not all of it for the better.

One of my sister in-laws, who works as a teachers assistant, was recently part of her school's campaign to encourage parents to take a more active role in helping their children reduce weight where it was a real health issue. Letters were sent to thirty sets of parents asking them to attend (voluntarily) a school presentation where they would be given guidance on diet and exercise. Of the thirty children concerned only three parents showed up. Those who did attend have shown an improvement in their diet and health and weight loss commensurate with their age. As a reward they have been sent to a paintballing park nearby, paid for by the school.

We are told from a relatively young age that taking drugs, smoking and drinking to excess can and will kill, is it really so bad that as a nation we should be taking steps to improve our children's health?



Just say no (occasionally)