Fat is a spreading issue. Peoples' girth-growth is exercising more minds than ever. Some warn that chubby children are doing so much damage to themselves that they could live shorter lives than their parents. Others say overeating could result in obesity overtaking smoking as Britain's biggest preventable killer. Just why is eating so much so popular? In these body-obsessed times, being really big is rarely considered really beautiful. Being overweight is, mostly thanks to the media, unfashionable. It is also, thanks to science, linked to cancer, heart disease and strokes.

Yet the world is losing the fight against flab. An astonishing 60% of all American adults are either overweight or obese. Experts on this side of the Atlantic say our population is traversing the same fat curve. In the developing world, where famine and poverty have historically conspired to keep people unhealthily thin, obesity rates are rising. This is a global contradiction. In poor nations it is urban elites who can afford to overeat. In rich nations obesity affects the urban poor, who indulge fat-filled diets and low-exercise lifestyles. In both instances, the options offered to people are as much a problem as the choices made.

The modern age sees populations gorge on fast-food - leading to bigger waists and bulging profits for big corporations. In one US court case the claim has been made that junk food, like tobacco before it, is addictive and dangerous enough to warrant a warning. There is growing support for a global treaty on fast food. This will have to deal with the financial muscle of the industry. But the matter of size is probably best dealt with in peoples' minds not in the courts. The pressure for appearance's sake to be thin, lean and toned misses the point. More exercise should be encouraged - but on health grounds. And the sedentary lifestyle of channel-hopping teenagers challenged. Size matters but what counts is on the inside not the outside.