One reason people do not consider themselves overweight or obese is because they're not. The Body Mass Index measurement is a very crude measure that takes account only of height in relation to weight, and no other factors such as age, build, family history, lifestyle, etc. Why should I be considered overweight just because I come from a family of short, fat people with big bones? Why should I be expected to be the same weight as I was 50 years ago? Until there is an improvement in this back-of-an-envelope calculation, it will not be possible to get an accurate assessment of any rise in obesity, and how to tackle it.
Marian Nyman
Whitstable, Kent
Clearly we are approaching this from the wrong direction. We have got stuck in the idea that people are doing this to themselves. Any objective reading of the evidence would show that some people develop a very strong addiction to eating fattening foods. We need to focus on that addiction, and figure out how to tackle it. Some biological mechanism is forcing many people to do something they clearly do not want to do – get fat. It isn't "greed" or "laziness", nor is it stupidity. Until we stop the blame game and get down to the nitty-gritty of knowing what is happening and why, we will keep circling around the same old arguments.
Mark Lockett
Salford
Your article avoids the real issue: the obesity epidemic is not a debate between personal responsibility and increased taxation on "bad" foods; it is a product of poverty. The onus is on the government not simply to ban tax-avoiding, multinational fast food chains, but also to implement policies that will rectify the appalling lifestyle so many are forced to adopt.
Lauren Spaven-Donn
Edinburgh
Astonishing that a derisive appraisal of John Burton Race's looks was deemed worthy of printing. Would a male critic get away with poking fun at a female restaurateur's attractiveness?
Ben Cox
London N16
Helpless at birth, and for a long time thereafter, we don't just "need attention almost as desperately as food and warmth"; our survival is dependent on our ability to get the attention of someone who is able to provide food and warmth, and who cares enough about us to do so.
Nancy Blake
Hull
I felt much empathy with Jane Hooper, having had chronic daily headaches for 42 years. We chronic pain sufferers, especially those whose disability doesn't show, get precious little understanding or sympathy.
Angela Latham
Worthing, West Sussex
Go for it, Lucy – a friend who home-schooled her two awesome boys once said to me, "What they are learning is pretty random". But what kids learn at school is pretty random, too.
Refia Sacks
London N5
Of course it's called belly pork – but is Paul Carling really surprised that southerners get things arse over tip?
David Mayers
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Sam Wollaston has never loved the new resurrected Mini – fine. I, meanwhile, have never been much enamoured of the gratuitous use of foul language. Two "twats" in a piece about a car? Come on.
Alison Norman
York
To the dozen cricket fans on the train who helped us with last week's Crossword: it was lovely to meet you, even if you'd all had a few too many to remember who was the youngest man to play test cricket for England.
Esther Price
Brighton
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