“I’m trying to do this for other people, so it’s kind of a selfless act,” reflects Hugo Taylor, erstwhile ornament on Made in Chelsea and self-styled “TV personality”. One of six celebrities taking part in The Junk Food Experiment (Wednesday, 9pm, ITV), Hugo has pledged to consume nothing but fast food – specifically pizzas, burgers and fried chicken – for three weeks in order to educate us on what happens when we fill our faces with rubbish. In the great scheme of rich men’s altruism, Hugo’s sacrifice is surely up there with Bill Gates’s pledge to eradicate malaria.
This is, the narrator tells us, serious and scientific research conducted under serious and scientific conditions, meaning there will be doctors and graphs and stuff. It’s entertainment masquerading as solemn public service. Among Hugo’s fellow guinea pigs is Peter Andre, who, despite his enthusiastic burger habit, insists he’s far from a junk-food addict. His devotion to getting his mug on TV, at whatever physical or mental cost, is another thing – there must be a floor at the Priory dedicated exclusively to famouses hooked on the thrill ride that is taking part in arduous television “experiments”.
Then there’s Nadine Dorries, the God-fearing member for Mid Bedfordshire best known for her creative approach to expenses, trying to curtail abortion rights and for chowing down on kangaroo testicles on I’m a Celebrity. Here, in between going about her parliamentary business, she will be generously providing poo samples to assess the effect on her guts.
But back to brave, selfless Hugo, who is irked by the beigeness of the food, despite the fact that his clothes and furnishings come in precisely the same hue. He likes to quote the Dalai Lama and is a fervent believer in “lean living” – which, judging by his spotless and spacious home, doesn’t mean trying to feed a family of four for a tenner a day. “My mother was part of the organic wave, before it became extremely commonplace,” he says airily. Hugo’s every utterance is gold for the show’s producers, along with viewers labouring under the suspicion that Chelsea trustafarians are a bunch of pampered, self-absorbed nitwits. Which makes it quite a blow when, a few days into the task, he throws in the towel. Hugo, we learn, has been having panic attacks – the merest glimpse of a Domino’s pizza sends him into the foetal position – and the call of green juice has become overpowering. “Psychologically, I’m not the right test case,” he tells the doctor.
Luckily, Peter is happy to pick up the slack. While the other participants, who include the Olympian Tessa Sanderson and Corrie’s Hayley Tamaddon, can be seen fighting off migraines and wrangling volcanic eruptions from their rear ends, he remains chipper, taking to his bike to deliver pizzas and health-related homilies to unsuspecting civilian families. Later, an MRI inspection reveals that Peter gets the kind of high from eating junk food usually enjoyed by clubbers getting twatted on MDMA. Let’s just say that when he crashes, he crashes hard. But no matter, as this is all in a day’s work for Bob-a-job Andre. That spray tan won’t pay for itself.
