Obesity

How strong is the link between obesity and the danger of dying from Covid? Yesterday, the World Obesity Federation published a report containing a widely-quoted statistic that 2.2 million out of 2.5 million Covid deaths globally have occurred in countries where more than half the population is overweight. The figure is stark, although also highly unsatisfactory. Obesity tends to be more prevalent in wealthy countries – which also happen to have more aged populations, another strong risk factor in Covid deaths. Yet the report also collates a substantial body of evidence linking obesity more directly with Covid deaths.

It is a particular pleasure to be returning to the columns of The Spectator, more than half a century after I became editor. The paper has been part of my life for a very long time. When I was at school, more than 70 years ago, we were all told to read Harold Nicolson’s column every week, to learn the art of essay-writing. I like to think that it was still a good paper in my time, but it is a much better one now. Fraser Nelson and his team are doing an excellent job. Our lives remain dominated by the plague, aka Covid-19. The government’s handling of it — admittedly a difficult task — has not been brilliant, but no worse than the performance of its scientific and medical advisory group (no acronym has ever been less apt than Sage).

Peer review Sir: A neat solution to the levels of inactivity of some members of the House of Lords (‘Peer pressure’, 1 August) might be annual self-assessment against national minimum standards: record of attendance (including duration), contributions to debates, questions asked, involvement in legislative procedure, notable achievements, charitable works. Any peer falling short should be shown the ornate door, as should any caught popping in just to claim their £300.David EdwardsNorton sub Hamdon, Somerset Matrix of success Sir: It is agreed that the purpose of the Upper House is to employ its wisdom and experience to improve draft bills emanating from the Commons. The present occupants of the Lords hardly represent a font of all wisdom.

One of the genuine pleasures I always take in arriving back in the north-east after being in London is that I am suddenly transformed from being an aged fat pig with bad teeth into a youthful, lissome creature with teeth no different to anybody else. It is not the clean air or the glorious countryside which has this effect; it’s just that everything is comparative. Giles Coren once observed that for every 50 miles you travel away from our capital, you go back in time about ten years. If this is true — and I suspect it is — then up here on Teesside we’re in the middle of that very agreeable summer of 1970, with hot pants, Ted Heath suddenly elected, Rivellino scoring goals for fun in the World Cup and The High Chaparral on the telly.

The nice French doctor looked beadily at the screen. There were the results of my tests, in irrefutable detail. They had taken my blood; they had beeped in my ears; they had covered me in painful hair-pulling electrodes, and now there was no use bluffing. I tried to draw her attention to what I conceived was my Hulk-like strength, the blast furnace super bellows of my lung capacity. She wasn’t having any of it. There was the key piece of data — blinking like a Geiger counter. I have really known it, or suspected it, for decades. In the past few months I have had the joy of being back on my bike, and the reality of my physique has been obvious to all the people who have overtaken me; and when I say all, I mean all.

From 30 March next year, of course, we will no longer be subject to all those silly EU laws on bent bananas (which was genuine, not a myth), toasters, balloons and all the rest. Instead we will be able to concentrate on passing our own good old British silly laws. Even the European Commission never came up with the idea of limiting pies to 695 calories. So bravo, then, to Public Health England for having the imagination to out-Brussels Brussels. Today, the quango unveils its latest strategy in fighting obesity: regulating portion sizes. As well as regulating pies, the proposed rules include a maximum calorie count for pizzas of 928 calories. I struggle often to figure out what goes on inside a regulator’s head. How do you come up with such a precise figure. Why not 927 calories?

Sofie Hagen is a young Danish comic I admire. I didn’t see her most recent show, Dead Baby Frog, but I saw her win the best newcomer award at Edinburgh in 2015 and I was happy for her. I liked her sweet face and her fury. The audience treated her as a benign oddity. Because Sofie is fat. I say this with no judgment, for I am fat myself, but I am not as upset about it as she is. I make no attempt to spin my fat into a matter for universal sympathy and something to be admired. It is, as the adult self says, what it is. Even so, I used to write about being fat so often that other columnists told me to stop it, for fear I was monetising self-hatred. To which I say — what else are you supposed to do with it?