Mike Ward At Large

Gorging Followed by Guilt

Tell me, how’s the diet going? I’m assuming you’re on one. Come on, you must be: it’s January. Everyone’s on a diet in January. It’s what Januarys are for. Or that’s the message TV likes to send us.
I do chuckle at TV’s approach to food at this time of year, the way it shamelessly leaps from one extreme to the other within the space of, what, a fortnight.
All through December we’re bombarded with programmes encouraging us to stuff our faces:
“Fed up with turkey? Then why not try my sensational new recipe for deep-fried elephant? I’ll be giving you this and other festive tips – potatoes roasted in goose fat, parsnips roasted in goose fat, sprouts roasted in goose fat, christmas pudding roasted in goose fat, all washed down with a lovely warming glass of goose fat – in my new six-part series, It’s Christmas So You Must Eat Until You Actually, Like, Literally Explode.”
There are more of these festive food shows with every passing year, as the back catalogue of ancient ones, repeated ad nauseam (in a very real sense), is supplemented by fresh seasonally-themed offerings, even though they’re just saying the same thing.
I wonder, do the likes of Jamie and Nigella never turn around and say: “What, you want me to make another programme in which I show the viewers how to make Christmas lunch? How many times do these people need telling, for God’s sake?”
“Oh, what, there’s a big fee in it, you say? Fair enough, where do I sign..?”
So anyway, we go ahead and eat like idiots, just as they advise, because otherwise, well, what else is there to do at Christmas?
And then, sure enough, two weeks later, along comes a whole new bunch of programmes, on the same channels and sometimes even in the same time slots, the cheeky blighters, with titles like Winter Diet Club and Time To Shed That Ugly Blubber and What In Pity’s Name Have You Been Eating? and Flaming Heck You’re The Size Of A Shire Horse.

And so it continues, year after year – the gorging followed by the guilt. So what alternative am I proposing?
To be honest, I don’t have one. Put food in front of me and I’ll eat it. That’s just the way I’m made. I’ll eat it and then I’ll get fat. And then I’ll feel bad. And then I’ll decide to do something about it. Sort of.
So, yes, much though they irritate me, I will be watching some of these January weight-loss shows. I’ll listen intently, I’ll follow their advice and, in all seriousness, I’ll stick with it. Often right up to the closing titles.
Mike Ward is the TV Critic of the Daily Star and the TV Editor of the Daily Express Saturday magazine. Hear him every Monday afternoon with Guy Lloyd on Brighton’s Juice 107.2
Twitter: @mikewardontv