At present, in the UK (statistics may vary from nation to nation but the current number purely represents the ‘don’t care ‘bout no-one else’ attitude to which we all adhere), 28% of the population are classified as ‘obese’, whilst 34% are ‘healthy’. You don’t have to be Einstein to be seriously worried about the remaining 38% who are neither. Are they invisible? Too light to weigh? Too heavy to put on the scales?? I mean, we need to know.

Because the worry is that by 2027 one third of the population will remain ‘healthy’ whilst another third will be classified as ‘obese’. The third third, in case you’re worried, like I am, represents ‘overweight’, that nether world where you’re too fat to be healthy but not quite fat enough to be an official ‘fat bastard’. It’s the calorific equivalent of being an agnostic rather than an atheist. And those people really should learn to commit.

By 2040 70% of the population will be either ‘obese’ or ‘overweight’.

But then you have to remember that these are just statistics. Not even the crunching of meaningful data, but ‘projecting’, looking into the crystal ball of t-tests and normal distributions to try and predict the future. Like Nostradamus but with a veil of scientific validity. They can’t predict the weather for tomorrow but they know how much every single member of our 60 million population is going to eat forever.

There’s another interpretation. Just as valid. If you look at the numbers a slightly different way. Thinking outside of the box (of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes).

‘Fatness’ is going to increase by 6% by 2027. They’re assuming that’ll be 6% more people becoming ‘obese’. But I propose that it might just mean that the existing 28% obese ones of the population just increase their own intake by 6%!!! Meaning the fat get fatter, the rest stay the same. There is a precedent: the rich get richer. Same thing, different units of measurement.

My main worry, as a ‘healthy person’ who eats more than any fat bastard, is that they’ll take all the food. Leaving us ‘healthy’ ones with nothing but lettuce and broccoli. Or worse still, that the fat may just start eating the thin people. Big worry.

To combat this Mars bars have thought of the most brilliant thing ever. A Mars bar which is 24% lower in calories!! And so clever, they did this by… making it about 24% smaller. Almost as if ‘the less you eat the healthier you may become’!! We need to work on the statistics there before announcing it.

Happy HEALTHY Thursday

A xxxx