You Are What You Eat (Ch 4); Wife Swap (Ch4): WE have had DIY shows to make our homes look nice and make-over programmes to make our wardrobes respectable - now we have a show to make our insides look better.

Dr Gillian McKeith believes she can single-handedly turn the health of the nation around. With the number of people suffering from obesity on the rise, Gillian wants to get us all back on the eating straight and narrow using some very weird methods. She claims she can tell from your tongue and bowel movements what is lacking in your diet - not a pleasant job, but obviously the quirk that landed her a role on TV.

What Gillian has to say is common sense - eat less rubbish and exercise more - but to make the plain message more appetising, we get to spend time with the people who are literally eating themselves to death.

This week it was Yvonne Grant - a 32-year-old woman who describes herself as "fat and lazy". A week's food was spread out on a table to show just what goes into making Yvonne the way she is. You don't need to be a dietician to know that ten bags of crisps a day is not a good way to live, especially when coupled with absolutely no exercise. Yvonne, who never eats fruit and veg, was chastised for her contribution to the greenhouse effect (she suffers from bad flatulence) and then put on a new health regime.

Gillian is the health equivalent of Kim and Aggie from How Clean Is Your House - she won't take any nonsense from people who are only interested in eating as much unhealthy food as possible. She claims to only want us all to be healthy 80 per cent of the time but you can't imagine tucking into fish and chips or a TV dinner if she was standing over your shoulder.

Maybe Gillian's next stop should be the house of Lucy and Tony from Feltham. Their appearance on Wife Swap is set to become the stuff of TV legends.

Lucy doesn't discipline or control her children and is amazed when she swaps places with Pat from Nottingham and discovers that none of the kids are setting fire to things.

Pat lives with her husband Spike and they run their home to the same rules as their jobs - in the prison service. Never mind running riot, their kids even have to get permission to laugh.

There is no question that these two couples were chosen because they were so different and in their own ways, so unusual. The results were unbelievably explosive but there lies the problem. Where on earth can the programme makers take us next - how many over-disciplined families or socially inept couples exist?

Wife Swap has stopped being an interesting social experience and has turned into an episode of Jerry Springer - giving us chance to marvel at social freaks rather than find out what would happen if most of us stepped into our neighbours' shoes.

Published: ??/??/2004