Nah sorry Mark I don't buy that at all. Weight gain is not a disease - it's eating too much of the wrong thing and not having the self discipline to do exercise or control your diet.

I accept that a few people have a predisposition to being larger, but not the kind of size we're seeing in recent years. If that was even slightly true then there would be morbidly obese people in the third world, starving to death but still big with it.

I do accept that food can become an addiction though, but like a lot of drug or alcohol addicts that addiction is purely psychological. It's not until late stage addiction as the addict is poisoning themselves to death that it becomes physically linked.

I'm also not suggesting 'just stop eating', I think that people have a responsibility to change their attitude to food and take some personal responsibility, and not expect society to feel sorry for them and give them any kind of special dispensation. In the UK treating obesity related diseases is now the biggest single cost to the national health service - that means my tax pound is already paying for people that choose a big mac and fries over fruit, which I don't think should happen. Smokers are starting to have to contribute towards treatments for smoking related diseases for bringing it on themselves, obesity should be looked at the same.

And that includes paying extra for flights ;)