Statistically, if you have ever dieted you are extremely likely not only to regain any weight you lose, but to go on to gain even more. Dieting makes you fat.

Why has everything got to be about feelings these days? In the old days, no one knew what anyone was feeling and, what's more, they weren't expected to.

With a diplomat father, for whom foreign postings were a fact of life, my siblings and I were expected to attend boarding schools in Britain.

My parents both had Oxford degrees, they read important books, spoke foreign languages, drank real coffee and went to museums for pleasure. People like that don't have fat kids: they were cut out to be winners and winners don't have children who are overweight.

If I'm hunting down gifts, I like to buy locally.

When not eating, I like shopping; although I'm afraid I've become a bit of a cliche.

Sticking to a diet required me to have a permanently low self-esteem. But happily, I developed other skills beyond a fluctuating weight, eventually building up a different source of self-worth.