Diet, diet, diet... And why not? After all, ‘Large’ people are unpleasant to look at and take up two seats on public transport.

But is that really any reason to ostracise them?

Well, as far as I’m concerned, for me it’s never been a question of size.

The term ‘fat’ only really applies to people of the following bent: Any man, woman or child who, out of sheer laziness, occupies a sofa for more than eight hours a day, stuffs pizzas, burgers, fries, cola and Mars bars (profiteroles if they come from North Oxford) into increasingly gorged faces, and for whom exercise is a stagger to the toilet (and then only for solids).

These then are ‘fat’ people. Unashamedly so. Their behaviour defines their size. But for almost everyone else, size should be an irrelevance.

I’m painfully thin (understand – not slim but thin) yet moronically there’s no social stigma attached to this.

However, if I were to put on weight, even a little – and trust me, this WOULD be healthy – I bet my salary friends and colleagues would ‘oink!’ as I walked past.

Now, as far as I can tell, 95 per cent of us aren’t bothered about weight in others; just ourselves.

I mention this only because newspapers and magazines, as they always do at this time of year, are furiously touting diets and fitness regimes that guarantee to deliver the kind of bodies a Playboy centrespread would doubtless be proud of.

Yet as far as I know, the vast majority of men couldn’t give two monkeys about whether their wives or girlfriends are a size 8 or 16 – truth is, they’re just grateful that ANYONE finds them attractive.

Indeed, I don’t know of any man who has ended a relationship because his girlfriend/wife has gained an extra fold or 10.

It just doesn’t happen.

And good on actor Pierce Brosnan who, when asked last year about his wife’s weight gain, responded curtly: “And I love every inch of her”.

Well why wouldn’t he?

Plus, isn’t it interesting that men’s and lads magazines rarely, if ever, carp on about weight.

Sure, no-one’s denying they print pictures of scantily-clad women in sexually provocative poses, but regularly these ‘models’ are far from being pencil slim.

Women’s magazines on the other hand, while constantly banging on about how ‘we should see the person, not the body’, actually do little to reassure their readers, deliberately stuffing their journals full of Audrey Hepburn and Kate Moss lookalikes (no double standards there then?).

Fortunately (speaking of course as a man), men have, historically, been more relaxed about their weight, although in the last five years, sexual equality has finally caught up with us too, and we are at last beginning to understand just how it must feel to be a woman.

And make no mistake, it’s been something of a wake-up call; finding oneself judged according to whether you sport a washboard stomach or not has come as something of a shock.

The point being that ‘fat’ on its own isn’t ugly or unattractive; just when it’s accompanied by behaviour which accentuates and feeds our perceptions of just what ‘fat’ is.

Which is sitting in front of Emmerdale with a Kentucky family bucket on our laps.

Make mine a ‘Large’ please (and yes, I find comedienne Jo Brand incredibly sexy).