P.E? N.O!

Would you like to join me in some exercise? Just kidding, of course you wouldn't. The nearest to exercise that most people get is hoisting their arm up to sign their gym membership application forms. It is also the last time they will ever go there, in the same way that no-one that has ever bought a popcorn machine will ever use it.

Would you like to join me in some exercise? Just kidding, of course you wouldn't. The nearest to exercise that most people get is hoisting their arm up to sign their gym membership application forms. It is also the last time they will ever go there, in the same way that no-one that has ever bought a popcorn machine will ever use it.

We don't eat popcorn because there aren't enough calories in it, unless you cover it in butter and that would mean walking all the way over to the fridge, and we won't do that because of all the energy we would lose in the process.

To obviate the need for all that tiresome movement, we eat what is nearest to us, which is usually a family fun sized pack of cheese and onion, deep fried, chocolate covered fat bombs. "Family fun sized" is now the recommended amount for a single serving. It is the snack you can't eat between meals because to have a "between meals" would imply that the eating stops at some point, which it does not, not even to take a breath. We will ingest food in our lungs if necessary, just as long as we can keep shovelling it in like boiler-men feeding the fires on a steamship.

"Eat five a day", the government wrote in easy to understand instructions, and they might as well have used hieroglyphs for all the attention we paid. The only thing we thought when seeing them is whether they were printed on edible paper.

In a panic, the food police then said that we should actually be eating nine a day. Half the country almost spat out their chips when they heard that one. There aren't even nine vegetables and fruits to choose from are there? Does a Mars Bar count? How about Pepsi? That must have SOME fruit in it.

And what is the result of our sugar based nutritional regime and a total aversion to manual movement? Well, look down, it is all before us - our stomachs are so large they have their own post codes. We have to buy our shirts from the tent store. We're so fat that the picture we took of ourselves last Christmas is still printing.

And how do we feel about this? We feel let down, that's how. Why oh why isn't someone doing something about it? Whose fault is it that our closest and most meaningful relationship is with our shopping trolleys? Why hasn't the government warned us about this? Oh wait, that's right, they did, and we called them the Nanny State and told them to get their hands off our dinner plates.

We cant have it both ways - we can't on the one hand demand the right to make our own choices and then make all the wrong decisions again and again, day after day. If we can't be trusted with looking after ourselves, then we need someone to do it for us, and wipe our mouths and burp us, if necessary.

A private health care provider has funded a survey that found that, as a nation, we are not only ignoring the advice to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, we aren't eating any at all. Ever.

We are also not exercising, like we have been told to. I hope they didn't spend much money on this survey because all you need to gather that information is to go outside your home, or if that's too much effort, to look in the mirror.

The High Street is one giant wobbling display of barely covered jelly, popping out where clothing used to meet. We are one calorie short of erupting out of our clobber like a burst sausage and yet we do no physical jerks and we gorge on food that has the same nutritional content as the Styrofoam box it comes in, and the calorific profile of blancmange.

The answer we seem to have come up with is to normalise this condition and to make it a sin to even notice it in others, or ourselves. The survey reports that we are "happy" with our fitness levels and body shapes and claim that we would take better care of ourselves if only we had the time.

Sadly, "time" is the one thing that carrying on like this will deprive us of.

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