Step away from the Kit Kat and watch your waist

I have two ‘apple’ quotes that amuse, and I use, often. The first is Billy Connolly impersonating a round-faced, ruddy-cheeked acquaintance of his. ‘I’m an apple!’ he cries. In a Scottish accent. Is very funny. Well, it used to crack 14-year-old me up. The second is Jack Nicholson’s ‘How d’ya like them apples?!’ line in Chinatown. (Actually, the first person I heard say that was an ex called Paul. But my feeling is he copied Jack and not the other way around.)

I don’t really know where Jack’s/Paul’s expression came from - or what it really means (it’s an antagonistic ‘What do you think about that?!‘ — but why?) - but that’s not important right now. What’s important is ‘apples’ = funny sassy banter. Therefore ‘apples’ = ‘good’.

Or it did. Because now, ladies,‘apples’ = ‘bad’.

Wow, someone really needs to rework that ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor at bay’ line

For research from the charity Nuffield Health has revealed we’ve morphed from a nation of pear-shaped women (smaller on top, bigger on bottom) to round, big-waisted apples. And that extra fat so close to our vital organs, the experts say, increases our chances of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and infertility. Wow, someone really needs to rework that ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor at bay’ line…

The study didn’t say why so many women are filling out (the data from more than 30,000 females found 57% have a waist larger than the 80cm optimum healthy size) but it doesn’t take a genius - or Gillian McKeith - to work it out: our lifestyles are sedentary; we eat too much; we’re stress-heads (too much ‘aaargh’ activates the stress hormone cortisol which lays down fat on our tums) and we’re a little bit insane when it comes to our weight.

You can lose weight, sure, but you’ll put it ALL back on after a week of ‘normal’ eating again

The Cabbage Soup Diet? The Lemon/Cayenne/Maple Syrup Diet? The Tapeworm Diet?! (How d’ya like them infested apples?!) Or, the latest fad, the protein-based Dukan Diet. Du kan (I know) lose weight, sure, but you’ll put it ALL back on after a week of ‘normal’ eating again!

Please let your once-obese-then-scar​ily-skinny-now-norma​lly-curvy writer tell you how to drop the pounds and keep them off for good. Just eat sensibly and exercise regularly. Or… get dumped and watch your love marry another. (I lost 3 stone that way.)

Look, I know many of us have tricky relationships with food, but those ‘big-waist’ health scares are terrifying, no? So, for the sake of our little tickers, let’s go for a two-finger KitKat instead of a four. Let’s get off the bus one stop early and walk that little bit further. Let’s date someone who will poop on us from a great height and destroy our trust in men but restore our faith in cheekbones. Come on, girls! We can do it!

Bibi Lynch is a columnist, writer and broadcaster (for many publications/station​s, including: The Guardian, Grazia and BBC London radio). Londoner. Short.

Follow Bibi on Twitter @bibilynch

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