COME ON MR SUPER-LO CALORIEMAN, RESCUE ME!

January 23 2007: It's been a little slow cranking-up in the UK this New Year - it's probably because 2006 was a period of even more intense hysteria than usual and hence the expected frantic outpouring has been a little muted (You would have expected every D-class celebrity  to have been declaring publicly by now "2007 will really be the year when I finally crack my weight issues.")

But it all began to fall back neatly into place today, albeit at the big issue, macro-level.....

......3 separate news stories, 3 major themes - and a depressing stew they make, too: Government cluelessness, overweight ghettoisation; lifelong dieting imprisonment.

It has been revealed that the much-vaunted governmental crusade against childhood obesity has floundered, three whole years after its fanfare announcement, diffused ineffectively across no fewer than 26 bodies or groupings. The civil servants and politicians still vacillate over whether primarily to hound Big Food Business, to reach out to kids through educating parents, or whether to take the kids themselves directly in hand with new dietary and lifestyle regimes. We are on the verge of that increasingly popular standby of government-by-theatrics - when it comes to the nasty stage of actually applying sustained critical thought and decisive, sustained action, yeah, why don't we appoint a super hero instead. The latest calls are for "a high profile figure to champion the battle against obesity". Heaven forbid that our underpants-over-his-tights Calories Crusader should deflect his intergalactic flight for a few quiet moments to reflect on what this "battle" may actually be all about!

The second news piece concerns the results of a joint study by researchers from the European Commission and the University of Padua. It concludes that there is a European-wide earnings differential that favours the non-overweight. Whether poverty begets overweight, or overweight blocks opportunity (or it is a combination), one clear interpretation is that fat bears the stigma of personal failure. (And personal failure erodes self-esteem and low esteem erodes self-image and low image is a passport into personal resignation to junk eating and overweight. Hey presto, it's a vicious circle - perhaps Super-Lo Calorieman (or woman) can straighten it out with his or her bare hands!)

The third piece comprises the findings of a survey by The Laughing Cow cheese firm. While not overlooking obvious possible biases within the survey field and the respondents, the figures make familiar reading: average UK women are said to spend about 31 years of their lives dieting, whilst one in five is permanently "on a diet".

So, dieting is epidemic and semi-permanent for the majority, overweight is divisive on a grand societal level - and our political leaders are faffing about utterly ineffectually.

Big questions - and perhaps requiring too gentle a touch to let our superhero loose on.

Nothing's changed except the final digit on the calendar.