GETTYLast week a study revealed a twenty minute walk a day could go a long way in fighting obesity
Nearly three stone overweight and with a 10,000-word dissertation to finish entitled "How to manage convicted child sex offenders in society", I was phoning home in floods of tears practically every other night.
In the end it was my straight-talking Jewish stepmother who saved me from disappearing up my miserable and rapidly-expanding backside.
The solution was simple, she insisted. All I needed was some exercise.
As is invariably the case with straighttalking Jewish stepmothers, she was right. I started going to the gym in between cramming for my law degree finals and ended up graduating several stone lighter and with a first for my opus on paedophiles.
I have been exercising ever since so you might think I don't know anything about being overweight, but I do because I've been there. Not morbidly obese, I grant you, but that is a condition that should only be reserved for the completely incapacitated (and even they do not need to stuff their faces day and night).
Which leads me to the mother and daughter combo who last week scoffed that they'd rather be "fat and happy and on benefits than thin, depressed and working for a living".
Janice Manzur, 44, and her daughter Amber, 25, weigh a total of 43st and have matching mobility scooters. The benefits paid to the pair, from Kirkcaldy, Fife, are the equivalent to a £46,000 salary.
And yet they defend their lifestyle, saying they "deserve" the money because they "cannot help being obese". It is in their genes, you see? It has got nothing to do with the fact that both are too lazy to walk anywhere and spend all day gorging on junk food and takeaways.
To quote Janice: "I do like fruit but it's expensive. It's £1.50 for a punnet of grapes. A chocolate bar costs 50p and I can get a six-pack of crisps for £1 so I buy those instead."
Has this woman never heard of a market? I can get a whole paper bag of fruit for a pound in St Albans, and that's supposedly one of the richest towns in Britain. I would imagine traders in Kirkcaldy would put on an "all you can eat" fruit buffet for the same price.
Seriously, why do we continue being so polite to these selfish spongers whose inability to exercise any self-control, let alone exercise, only results in them being a costly drain on the NHS? It is always the same old excuses with these people: diets don't work, fruit is too expensive, "it's my glands". It is just a fat load of nonsense.
LAST week, Cambridge University scientists revealed that the only exercise we really need to prolong our lives is a 20-minute brisk walk a day. I would defy anyone, except the severely invalided, not to be able to manage that. It isn't just Janice and Amber who appear to be in denial about what they eat, so are the rest of us.
As a society we are sanctioning this behaviour by funding these gluttonous and slothful lifestyles. Why are councils customising houses and paying for mobility scooters instead of telling these people to get on their bikes? If you'd rather be fat and happy than thin and depressed, then be my guest. Just don't expect the rest of us to foot the bill for your greed-induced inertia.
Of course these women don't deserve to be abused in the street, as I believe they have been, but they are wrong in claiming: "We can't change the way we were born."
First off, you weren't born morbidly obese. And second, there is something you can do about it. As that straight-talking Jewish stepmother of mine put it back when I had piled on the pounds, the solution is very simple: "Eat less and do more."
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GETTYMiley Cyrus has been over-doing the shock value nude photos again
MILEY CYRUS has been tweeting naked photographs of herself again. Yawn. It reminds me of the question red carpet prankster Dennis Pennis once posed to Demi Moore: "Are there any circumstances, if it wasn't gratuitous and it was tastefully done, you would consider keeping your clothes on in a movie?" If Miley really wanted to shock she'd be better off taking a selfie in a burka (although perhaps not in the current climate).
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SCIENTISTS have come up with a step-by-step guide to loading the dishwasher. Tips in the research by Dr Paul Perez-Mohedano, published in the Chemical Engineering Journal, include loading crockery and cutlery in a circular pattern.
Eh? Last time I checked dishwashers were square, not round. The racks are arranged in straight lines, not circles!
This strikes me as yet another man's excuse for piling plates up on top of the dishwasher in the hope they will miraculously load themselves.
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YOU CAN always count on the Duchess of York to keep the headlines rolling, can't you? Just when the tabloid tales surrounding the Prince Andrew sex scandal seemed to be subsiding, there Fergie goes shooting her mouth off on US TV in a publicity-seeking move to promote her latest dietary fad, the "Fusion Xcelerator food emulsifier" (also known as "a blender").
Sarah told the Today Show's Matt Lauer that "humongously good" Andrew was her "best friend" in an excruciatingly candid interview that only served to stoke the fires of the sordid saga in the world's media.
Buckingham Palace aides must be thinking of that old adage: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?"
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IS IT really any wonder Google Glass has proved a spectacular flop? The internet giant has stopped taking orders for the £990 smart glasses, which enable the wearer to see information on a small screen above their right eye, take photos and videos, get directions and read emails via a 4G internet connection.
As well as concerns about privacy, wearers complained about the price, the meagre 30-minute battery life and the design, which is frankly daft.
Remember the 1989 film Back To The Future Part II when Marty McFly travelled forward in time to 2015? I think we can safely say that these high-tech specs have proved to be the "Hoverboard" of 21st-century inventions.
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APRosamund Pike looked stunning on the red carpet
DESPITE being classier than a Viennese Whirl, Rosamund Pike has been criticised for revealing too much flesh at the Golden Globes.
The actress opted for a backless white Vera Wang number featuring cut-out sections despite giving birth to her second child little over a month ago.
Some bitchy fashion types took a swipe, suggesting she shouldn't have shown off so much of her post-baby figure but I thought she looked blooming marvellous.
Most new mothers are barely out of their pyjamas on week five and here she is rocking the red carpet! Not so much Gone Girl as Wonder Woman.
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