That figure, though, is just the tip of the iceberg. As all the research shows, we Brits are fatter and heavier than ever before in history, with one in four of us now classified as obese (a BMI between 30 and 40) – a figure which has more than doubled in the last quarter of a century – while a further third are overweight (a BMI between 25 and 29).
It’s not only our BMIs that are on a dangerous upward curve. Waistlines are expanding too, especially as we get older, when metabolic rate slows and body fat accumulates. Recent figures show that 30 per cent of men and 55 per cent of women aged 60 to 70 having a waist size of 102cm/40 inches and 88cm/34.5 inches respectively.
Corpulence has always been with us of course, although in former times it was associated with the rich. The lower classes, fed mostly on bread and jam with maybe a few scraps of meat on Sundays, tended to be weak and scrawny – as was noted with some alarm by officials sizing up recruits for the Boer War, in the first systematic measurements of height and weight ever undertaken.