At this time of year, a powerful industry springs into life, using time-honoured techniques to make us feel ugly, inadequate and ashamed. Look in the mirror, it says. You’ve become too fat to enjoy the summer. If you don’t buy into our false hope, then you’ll never wear a swimming costume, never enjoy the beach, never really be loved. It’s hardly surprising that as the weather warms up, instead of embracing the good times, many of us embark upon a diet.
This is a great shame because, when it comes to food, we’d perhaps all benefit from doing more of certain things – eating more vegetables, more oily fish, a bit more fibre – rather than the judgemental avoidance diets that have long been a part of the run-up to summer. I’m frequently criticised for this view. I’m told there’s an obesity epidemic and that in saying people should eat what they want I’m exacerbating, perhaps even causing, a huge health crisis.