No, not the state of the economy or our now more-under-control deficit. Our weight, as a nation, as women, as men, as children. We know we are, statistically at least, the fattest in Europe. We know we love our food with a passion! Very well-produced magazines like Taste (published with The Malta Independent on Sunday) have been avidly devoured by a nation that loves its food.

Somehow, however, we need to sustain this interest in food without letting the fat accumulate. I was interested to read that a TV presenter and past Eurovision hopeful is spearheading a 12-week programme to lose weight.

In her own words, Claudette Pace was reported as saying she’s had enough of yo-yo dieting and wants to lose weight, while creating awareness at the same time”.

And she’s not alone. Apparently 400 people crammed into the Catholic Institute in answer to her call. There are, of course, many more thousands who didn’t but who also have weight problems and who also, like her, are fed up of being in this vicious circle known as dieting.

One major concern of mine is the concept of a “diet” or of a “12-week programme”. What people who are overweight, or what those who write diet books, never seem to acknowledge is that you cannot go on a diet for 12 weeks, lose weight and then go back to your old ways.

You actually have to change the way you eat forever. It has to be a changed diet for life, otherwise the pounds or kilos will just pile on again. It’s unfortunate we cannot scrap the word diet altogether, because for most women, particularly, this signifies a great deal of effort which works only for as long as the diet works and then all the weight piles back on again.

More than 90 per cent who lose weight on any crash diet simply put it on again. The diet industry is huge today. One man’s meat is another man’s poison, they say, and in the case of the dieting industry, millions are made out of the tendency of people to put on weight if they eat more than they can burn up in a normal day. There are books, there are classes, there are clubs and fitness centres, there are diet foods, there are nutritionists… and yet we are getting fatter and fatter

The problem here starts with our children, as many problems do. I remember being quite shocked at one of the education posters used in the last election. Looking at it I realised it was normal to be fat, for Maltese schoolkids at least. And it is very difficult for a fat child, as it grows into an adult, to eat reasonably and have fun with it.

You see schoolchildren’s lunch boxes with a diet yoghurt and then a packet of crisps! In fact, the word packet has been glorified into the name of a food all of its own. “Mum can I have a packet?” is something you hear all the time.

Most of our children start their day with some sugar-laden cereal. We are altering their tastebuds to such a degree that many of them will only ever know what it is to be on a diet. Yo-yo dieting will be the norm in the future, as Claudette Pace said it is for her.

And, of course, alternate bouts of eating too much and eating too little are really bad for you. Bad for your health, bad for your skin – which lines more quickly – and bad for your mood, as everyone will tell you that diets really make you irritable.

Diets make you fat too, of course. Once you start on the diet treadmill, you can never get off. If you starve your body of food, the next time you eat your body will do everything possible to enable that food to be stored for as long as possible. If, on the other hand, you never diet as such but always eat small and frequent meals, you are actually encouraging your body to use the food and burn it up. And it goes without saying that daily gentle exercise helps too, or at least not being a total couch or computer potato!

I hate diets and the whole diet industry. I think they make millions out of giving women false hope. Basically, look at your plate of food and take something off it every day for the rest of you life. You'll lose weight. Slowly, but forever. And most of all, let’s not make our kids the fatties of tomorrow. Just remember how many fat old people you see.

The fat don’t often make it to old age. And we all want a healthy old age if possible.