Remember, there’s a person behind that bulging belly​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ | Emma Kay

A 2019 survey showed 28 per cent of adults in England are considered obese and a further 36.2 per cent overweight. These numbers are far likely, if you’ll pardon the pun, to be a lot wider than statistics suggest.

Obesity-related illness costs the NHS £6bn a year, but it is the weight of the price tag on our bodies that’s the far heftier one. These past two years have made us all too aware of our own mortality and if nothing else Covid alone might be the wake-up call we need to make healthier lifestyle changes.

Piling on the pounds was expected when we were ordered to stay behind closed doors for long periods. The scales in the UK are tipping more of us towards obesity and making us guilty about our blossoming stomachs.

We’re all so aware of the media zooming in on our bellies and inviting others to pour shame and cram the comment sections with insults that we barely acknowledge it any more.

When was the last time you saw a news story about weight that did not grab an image of a zoomed-in, supersized stomach? There is a person behind the belly.

Weight is a sensitive issue for so many and should not be used to ridicule. Our need to alter our bodies is no-one’s business but our own. Making snide comments at work or chuckling at someone’s food selection in their trolley just isn’t on. This kind of behaviour only discourages those desperate to make changes for themselves.

So why are we all going up a size? Well, people scared into stockpiling during the pandemic could be a reason.

Though many would not admit it, we all indulged in the lockdown frenzy of over-buying pasta and other products. But what happened to those extra groceries? They had to go somewhere.

Incentives of giving Fitbits and healthy food vouchers to reduce obesity are to be applauded for encouraging healthier options, not disparaged.

It’s been a hard lesson but finally, a spongy pavement

It has been more than two millennia since the Romans laid down their elegantly-named pavimentum, or pavement.

But they are really more of a road extension than a place for pedestrians. Throughout history thoroughfares have been designed for carriages and cars but never for us.

The pavement is simply a place for us to be out of the way of traffic.

Pavement pounding is leaving us with bad joints.

The average person takes more than 200 million steps in their life but our feet have not evolved to deal with such hard surfaces on a constant basis. In London a newer spongier pavement alternative is being developed which may, thankfully, finally tackle the issue.

Are you terrible to behold, a lifeless husk? Reclaim your bed...

Not being comfortable while you are supposed to slumber can turn you into a lifeless husk in the day, looking gaunt, tired and terrible to behold.

Nobody likes to feel like they are not in charge of their own bedtime. Nobody wants to be around someone who has bags under their eyes like bin liners.

It doesn’t have to be this way. We spend far too little on something we spend a third of our lives doing. It seems ridiculous to trust our spines in something that is so flimsy.

A better pillow for a better night’s sleep is paramount.

Moving beyond a humble budget pillow to what felt like a marshmallow was quite a step up in softness and comfort.

I wish I’d done it sooner.

A message from the editor, Mark Waldron.

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