There's a fatso I'd like you to meet, a real slob who readily says hello to the next pizza and to hell with personal restraint. He chugs down beer, likes a smoke, prefers two meat pies for lunch, biscuits with his frequent coffees and then a massive carb-loaded dinner, preferably with a plate that, when emptied, is filled with oily stuff that can be soaked up with a large slab of bread. Buttered, of course.

Hey, fat boy. Get up from that table and give us a look at that billowing second chin, that wobbly thing dangling close to breasts a supermodel would envy and just above a stomach suggesting twins might be on the way, if it were not for that crumb-laden moustache above your lip.

Obesity is a growing problem around the world. Credit:Stocksy

I'd like to introduce everyone to ... me. A little more than three decades ago. Young bloke no longer playing sport, living alone in a small flat in a big city not too far from a strip of fast food joints and pubs. Wasn't hard to take a previously skinny kid and inflate him to almost 115 kilograms.

What proved harder was deflating him. After headaches, rising blood pressure and a blunt doctor who wondered aloud if I wanted to make it to 30, I started on a self-devised diet and exercise program that would take months to carve off almost 25 kilograms of blubber.