I diet for my country.

My strategy for coping with a lack of success in girth reduction was to focus on increasing my height.

In our society of abundance we can spend more money on food which we don’t eat, than on food we do.

This is due to our national predilection for embarking on commercial diet plans, failing to shrink discernibly and then signing up with yet another plan. These plans cost us lots of money to eat very little.

Having been circumferentially challenged in the past, I feel that I should share a secret with you. My strategy for coping with a lack of success in girth reduction was to focus on increasing my height.

After all, correct body proportion is just as desirable as ideal body weight. Instead of being of average height and round, I planned to become tall and perfectly formed. My target, for an ideal height-to-weight ratio, was approximately 8’7" or 2.65 metres, at which point I would have assumed the appearance of a very tall Arnold Schwarzenegger with grey hair.

Sadly, it was a strategy requiring lots of positive reinforcement from friends and acquaintances. When they met me they were expected to say things like “My, you look much taller!” I did my bit by wearing built up shoes and stretched by spending long periods at the gym hanging upside down from various kinds of hanging-upside-down-from apparatus. I also saw some lucky people at the gym. People who could walk past a restaurant without gaining 3 kilos by osmotic transfer.

It proved to be every bit as unsuccessful as did repeated weight loss diets.

During the lifetime it has taken me to understand the secrets of weight loss I learned some extremely funny stories.

A mate of mine’s doctor warned him that his weight and lifestyle were deleterious to his health. He was advised to give up smoking and drinking, get more sleep and eat more fresh vegetables.

“If I do, will I live longer?” Asked my mate.

“No.” replied the doctor, “But it will seem longer.”

Nevertheless, over many years he persevered with the odium of dieting and has consequently provided an important revenue stream for dietary consultants and the entire weight-loss industry.

We can’t change the anatomy and physiology we are born with, but I do wish that such people weren’t the ones who constantly published papers on how the body functions — exhorting us to eat more lettuce and broccoli. It’s easy for people with legs like a Mantis to say, but they should try being a bon vivant for a while.

You don’t see your average aerobic instructor chortling his way through an afternoon, sauvignon blanc in hand, whilst solving the problems of the world and reciting poetry. Aerobic instructors say things like “…side and side and up and push and side and side and down…”, while sweating. Is that fun? It seems inherently dangerous to me. A number of good friends have died young and tragically while undertaking strenuous exercise, none that I know of has died while taking it easy.

But I digress.

I would like to point out that there would be an economic crisis in the agrarian sector if most people like me were to similarly embark on diets rather than concentrate on growing taller.

As it is, farmers will go to sleep tonight giggling, knowing we are still alive and well. Manufacturers of tractors and combine harvesters are tingling with glee at the prospect of ploughing plains which will photosynthesize into fields of wavy wheat and corn; nutritious grains, which will in turn be harvested for the cereals and breads we love.

Shares in John Deere and Kubota will remain strong while we survive. As we drive through the countryside, bucolic swains doff their hats and wave. They are saluting all those like us who reside at the top of the food-chain.

All over the country, in dairy factories and abattoirs, flour mills and packing sheds, on fishing trawlers and at salmon hatcheries, in bakeries and delicatessens, vineyards and breweries, workers hum as they toil, happy in the surety that we are in good health and will soon turn up at a supermarket or a restaurant, to joyously consume the fruits of their labour.

You may by now be able to grasp the economic downside of dieting and the heavy burden we have assumed on behalf of humanity in deciding to stretch rather than shrink.

If this course of action fails, I suggest a ‘proximity points’ programme, a vicarious way of loosing weight. All one has to do is gain ‘proximity points’ by choosing one or more of the following tasks each day:

1. Sit next to someone who is on a diet.

2. Live with someone who is on a diet.

3. Fib to someone who is on a diet about how good they look.

4. Watch an exercise video online

5. Eat kale or broccoli raw.

6. Drive past a gym.

7. Think about a mountain hike.

8. Try to befriend a thin person.

9. Try to befriend a vegan.

10. Ask for two scoops of ice-cream then turn one down.

The more points you are able to achieve, the greater the chance of averting economic collapse in the world’s primary industries.

Thank you for your support.