It was only a matter of time. Not content to tell us how much (actually how little) we should drink and how much (not at all) we should smoke, the Government now tells us what we shouldn't eat.

It makes me want to devour double fish and chips washed down with a bottle of claret and digested with the aid of a good cigar. What I do legally in my private life - and what you do in yours - has nothing to do with the Government.

This Government claims to be fighting for freedom everywhere, and yet every day finds a new way to boss us about. It reminds me of Alan Bennett's brilliant parody of the New Labour spin machine: "The loss of our liberty is the price we have to pay to preserve our freedom."

We all know why children are getting fatter. They don't walk to school any more because of their parents' hysterical dread of paedophiles. School games have been declared undesirable because they encourage un-socialistic competition. And children spend most of their time sitting in front of TV, video and the computer screen. And their parents don't eat properly. You've only got to see the junk food they pile up in their supermarket trolleys. There is the lazy habit of sending out for a pizza. (At least in my misspent youth we could actually walk as far as the chip shop).

Never so many cookery programmes, yet the art of preparing and enjoying food is dead. People merely watch cookery programmes for titillation - as if they were blue movies. Not one household in 20 ever sits down together to linger over a meal that has been prepared from fresh ingredients. Instead, it's a case of stuffing something hideous down the throat while watching the telly. Food is, or ought to be, one of life's pleasures and an art form. Children should have their taste educated and be taught to cook properly.

A national newspaper complained about advertisements which encourage children to be sneaky in their methods of obtaining the food they want. The newspaper condemned the slogan: "Don't let mum in on the act". But it thinks it's OK not to let mum in on the act when her pregnant 14-year-old is persuaded by a social worker to procure an abortion.

Obesity is a symptom of the slob culture which we now inhabit. As we lurch from the video shop to the nightclub, we grab something to eat - something terrifyingly highly-coloured and stuffed with preservatives. This is devoured swiftly, so that in a couple of hours we're ready for more of the same. So there is a built-in tendency to overeat.

It's all of a piece: the child who is now a fast food junkie will grow up to become a binge drinker. The slob culture is also the throwaway culture. We throw everything away: our fast food containers in the street, our last year's clothes, our aborted foetuses down the sluice. We do not need more regulations. We need to correct our national disgustingness, civilise our eating habits and clean up our act. This is not a job for the Government. It is our own personal responsibility. We need to reclaim our humanity and redeem the public realm from the shambles it is at present.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.