EVERY day a fresh stunt, a new buzzword, another PR gimmick. And today’s catchphrase folks is – wait for it – “obesogenic environment.” This stunt, like so many stunts, was dreamed up by our beloved nanny, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).

One of many of Nice’s resident geniuses, Professor Mike Kelly explains: “In simple terms…” Oh good, I’m so glad you’re going to keep things simple, Mike “…they are environments which encourage people to eat unhealthily and not do enough exercise.”

He spells it out for us: “places, usually urban, that encourage cars over walking… buildings with lifts and escalators prominently sited and staircases hidden away.” I must say I found the concept of the hidden staircase most mysterious.

In case we don’t quite get the picture, there is further explication: “Food is a crucial factor.”

Get away!

Who would have thought that eating has anything remotely to do with getting fat?

“Stations and cinemas are dominated by shops selling fried chicken, burgers, sugary drinks, pasties and sweets.” Then he tells us: “These are calorie-dense foods.” We would never have guessed.

“Research shows…” Oh yes, you can bet a Whopper to a KFC Zinger that “research” will have been done.

I will explain: you see, there are all these academics spilling around with nothing to do – so research projects are invented and the academics then fondly imagine they are usefully employed.

And what has research demonstrated?

“The number of takeaways in an area has an impact on obesity.” Well I never.

The Stalinists on Birmingham City Council have limited the number of takeaway outlets to no more than ten per cent of the units in any shopping centre.

Paul Gately, Professor of Exercise and Obesity – yes, there really is such a job – at Leeds Metropolitan University says: “Obesogenic environment is a useful way to put the onus on policymakers, rather than just blaming individuals for getting fat.”

The number of non-jobs, sinecures and cushy numbers in publicly-funded health research institutions proliferates by the minute. There’ll be a Professor of Fish and Chips at some new “university” and Phds in Walking the Dog Studies and Statistical Analysis of Sociological Data Concerning Getting Up From the Sofa. If it were not for this lunatic and criminal waste of our money, we could all have a good laugh and return to our pints and pies. Except not quite, for there is something more sinister and it was all there in Professor Gately’s saying that the onus for obesity must be “put on the policymakers” and not on those who stuff themselves daily and never run about.

“Policymakers” clearly means our elected politicians and if the onus for obesity is really to be put on them, it carries the absurd implication that I should be within my rights to sue the Government if I put on a couple of stone.

This is worse than a waste of money. It is bureaucrats up to their ears in controlfreakery.

Their pronouncements reveal their aim clearly enough, which is to micromanage every area of our lives, what we eat, how much we drink, sleep, walk – the lot.

I’ve just coined a phrase for it – nursemaid totalitarianism. And we’re sick of it.