So it’s OK to be a little plump, then. Raise a glass (or three) with me to another blow against the health fascists

LIKE most people, I enter the New Year with resolutions to drink and eat less, and to exercise more. But I have an even more steadfast resolution: to ignore the hectoring advice handed out by health ‘experts’.

One complaint about such advice is that it is often contradictory. A piece of research tells you to do one thing; the next suggests you ignore what you were previously told to do, and do something completely different.

Until this week it was a piece of unchallenged medical wisdom that we should not be overweight. Government and the BBC bang on endlessly about the dangers of obesity. We are led to believe that by the middle of the century many people will be so fat that they will barely be able to move.

And yet a reputable institution with a long name based in Maryland in the United States has produced an ‘ authoritative’ report which, while not advocating obesity, suggests that being overweight can extend life rather than shorten it.

The report, like all such reports, is said to be one of the largest reviews of research ever conducted. It must be right, then. It contends that slightly overweight people have a 6 per cent lower rate of premature death from all causes than people of ideal ‘ healthy’ weight. Even the mildly obese have no increased risk.

Can it be true? Did we refuse that second helping of Christmas pudding for no good reason? Or would it actually have been better for our health, or any rate longevity, if we had eaten it, and popped in a couple of extra mince pies for good measure?

My first response is to embrace the report, partly because it is on the side of having a good time, and partly because it pokes a stick in the eye of all those finger-wagging, head- shaking, tut-tutting health fascists who are forever instructing us to eat less.

Indeed, I am tempted to review my resolution, only made at the beginning of the week, to lose half a stone by the end of the month. Would it be prudent to do so if it would shorten my life? Obviously not. The sensible thing would be to put on half a stone.

BUT in the end I shall probably ignore the report, despite its life - affirming and admirably subversive nature. I realise that before long there will be another ‘authoritative’ report, emanating perhaps from Japan or New Zealand, which — having reviewed all the available research — concludes that thin people have a 6 per cent lower rate of premature death.

If we follow all the advice of health ‘ experts’ with their exhaustive research we will end up running about like headless chickens. Another example, close to my heart, is wine. For years we have been told that one or even two glasses of red wine a day are good for our health because of its anti-oxidant properties.

My own doctor, who is certainly no enemy of the grape, maintains that wine originating in the Cahors region of France is particularly beneficial as it mostly contains the Malbec grape, high in anti-oxidants. That is presumably why you see so many nonagenarians playing boules in those parts.

Admittedly, I sometimes exceed the recommended dose of one or two glasses of red wine during an evening, but at least I embark on the process with a sense of following official guidelines before an awareness of flying solo takes over.

Now, another ‘expert’ in this field has stepped in to claim that drinking even tiny amounts of wine significantly increases the risk of cancer. In three episodes of BBC Radio 4’s You And Yours this week, Dr Michael Mosley argues that the rather modest government guidelines of what it is safe to drink are excessive.

He suggests that a woman who drinks just one bottle of wine over a week increases her risk of breast cancer by 10 per cent. Like all such statistics, this is difficult to make much sense of, but it sounds bad. Dr Mosley also contends that very occasional short bursts of 20 seconds of activity are preferable to half an hour of exercise a day, as prescribed by the NHS.

Is he right? I haven’t the faintest idea. In one corner are Dr Mosley and lots of other doctors who are effectively saying we shouldn’t drink alcohol at all. In the opposite corner are other so- called experts who assert a couple of glasses a day are probably beneficial, and certainly not harmful.

As in the case of obesity, the wise course is surely to disregard conflicting advice, at any rate until they all agree — if they ever do. Isn’t it possible that most of us understand our own bodies at least as well as those who are forever instructing us what we should do with them?

My body is telling me that it doesn’t want to see another drop of alcohol for at least a month, and when it does it would appreciate a rather greater show of restraint than hitherto. As for weight, despite the lure of greater longevity dangled by those scientists in Maryland, my body is firmly on the side of losing it.

WE SHOULD trust ourselves. Most of us know what we need to do to safeguard our health. The only thing standing in our way is lack of willpower. Only we can supply that. Doctors can’t.

There are two main factors driving the often conflicting medical advice that swirls around the media. One is that scientists need to justify their funding by having their work mentioned as widely as possible.

The other is that some of them — I make no such accusation against Dr Mosley — have little faith in people’s ability to do what is best for themselves, and really want the State to direct and control our lives. Their favourite devices are to induce guilt and fear.

Yet, as I have argued, many of them can’t agree among themselves — not that this precludes them from continuing to adduce research that is declared to have proven this or that conclusion. I don’t doubt that these experts may be perfectly altruistic, but that doesn’t make them right.

The most powerful argument against the puritan zealots who don’t want us to drink, and would like us to subsist on a diet of boiled sprouts and lentils, is that their ideal world would be a thoroughly miserable one, and life in it scarcely worth living.

What is more uplifting to the spirit than a convivial glass of wine with friends? This is the crucial but immeasurable benefit which so many of the supposed experts with all their research miss out.

I hesitate to offer any health advice, being wholly unqualified to do so, but I do have a little advice about dealing with the ever-growing band of health bullies who so relish telling us how to live our lives.

Ignore them. Listen to what your own body is telling you. It must be possible to be healthy and have a good time.