By the way . . . Comfort foods simply don’t help you

EVERY time I go out, I’m horrified by the number of people I see who are vastly overweight; people almost disabled by their size.

Two thirds of adults are overweight or obese, and there are record numbers of patients being admitted to hospital due to their obesity.

There was nothing like this level when I started in medicine in the 1970s, but back then we hadn’t had the infiltration of refined carbohydrates — such as biscuits, cakes and confectionery — into our diets, nor the prevalence of fast food. And we hadn’t embraced a snacking culture and less active lifestyles.

There has long been discussion about putting calories on menus in restaurants and fast food outlets. Now Britain is making it law for this to be done and the Irish Heart Foundation says we should follow suit.

Will it go far enough? I’m not convinced. After all, how can it be that so many vastly overweight people who endlessly hear the preaching about the dangers of obesity — which we now know is a major risk factor for hospitalisation and death from Covid-19 — have not spent the past four months on weight loss plans?

Too many are lost in the tidal wave of information (and misinformation) about what constitutes healthy eating and so, even when terrified about the threat of Covid, they are like rabbits trapped in headlights.

My advice is to choose a diet and stick to it. If nothing else, accept the research on healthy eating patterns — avoid industrialised, aggressively marketed foods — and follow the Mediterranean diet (lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, and moderate amounts of poultry, eggs, and dairy products). Remember: comfort foods only give comfort to the companies that promote them, not to you.