ANTI-OBESITY IS NOT THE SAME AS OTHER TYPES OF DISCRIMINATION

If there’s one thing ­guaranteed to make you think about food nearly every moment of the day, it’s being on a diet.

If there’s one thing that makes you eat more than you usually would, because you’re thinking about it all the time, it’s being on a diet. If there’s one thing to make you feel miserable, a failure when you can’t stick to it, it’s being on a diet.

Why do you go on a diet? Because your waistbands are creating weals around your middle, your clothes don’t fit, your thighs chafe when you waddle and

you don’t like what you see in the mirror, or because someone has told you that you need to shed some pounds.

I know. I was a fat teenager and spent most of my waking moments thinking about food, sometimes starving myself and then giving in to the urge to stuff my face by bingeing.

All this gives some credence to a claim by scientists that making fat people feel bad about their weight only makes them pile on more pounds.

They do this because they feel ashamed and comfort themselves with food. They’re also too ­embarrassed to exercise.

Scientists say shaming those who are ­overweight is one of “the l­ast socially acceptable forms of ­prejudice”.

No it isn’t. You cannot compare a sort of disgust and disrespect for people who serially overeat and indulge and make themselves ill, sometimes barely able to walk, to an ignorant hatred of someone because they’re a different colour, sexuality or sex.

Sarah Jackson, of University College, London, who led the study, says: “There’s no justification for discriminating against people because of their weight”.

Well, no, but overeating costs the NHS alone over £5billion a year and takes up beds that could be used by those who haven’t eaten their way to illness. Sickness absence caused by obesity is around 16 million days a year and, because obese people are less likely to be in employment, welfare costs are thought to be as much as £6billion. The total cost to the economy of being overweight is ­estimated to rise to £50billion per year by 2050 if nothing is done to stem it.

So instead of bleating on about discrimination why is no one suggesting solutions, like moving more and eating less, reining in the food industry and imposing maximum limits on fat and sugar content?

Why are fast-food chains allowed to peddle foot-long subs and vats of fizzy drink?

Why isn’t mental-health care adequate and up to providing ­counselling for those for whom overeating is a mental-health issue? Being addicted to food is a problem, which sometimes can’t be helped.

Insults aren’t productive but comparing it to other prejudices is also insulting to those who suffer abuse and injury because they have a difference they’re born with.