For professional reasons, Rachel Smalley may have had to quickly retract her unfortunate on-air slip, where she labelled New Zealand women ‘heifers’ and ‘lardos’, but the facts speak for themselves.

According to the Ministry of Health, one-in-three adults in New Zealand is obese, with a Body Mass Index reading of 30 or more. The figures get even worse when you widen the scope, with three out of every five Kiwis regarded as overweight.

And the problem is getting worse. In 1997, only 17 per cent of Kiwi men were obese, but that figure now stands at 30 per cent. For women, the obesity rate has risen from 21 per cent to 32 per cent over a 16-year period.

Why is it that we go to extreme lengths to ‘de-normalise’ smoking, but take the opposite approach with obesity, hiding instead behind politically correct platitudes – or even worse, not mentioning it at all?

New Zealand, face it, we as a nation are fat, and getting fatter. We are not big-boned, large-framed, husky, or solidly built. We are F.A.T. not P.H.A.T.

The average weight for New Zealand women may be 72kg, as was stated on Smalley’s radio show, but that doesn’t mean it is normal or healthy.

Obesity has a grave impact on the welfare of obese people, who are significantly more likely to suffer from coronary heart disease, type two diabetes, various cancers, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnoea, and osteoarthritis to name a few.

We need to stop pussyfooting around the problem. Should we ever need a rallying cry to motivate us, childhood obesity figures are an excellent place to start. One-in-nine children under the age of 14 is obese (11 per cent), representing a 38 per cent increase from 2007. And a further 22 per cent are currently overweight.

Smalley certainly overstepped the mark by venturing into the pejorative. We do not demonise flu sufferers, so why demonise overweight people?

Many solutions are being proposed as to how to tackle this epidemic which are too numerous to include in this piece. However, when assessing them, two things need to be borne clearly in mind.

Firstly, food – even the high in sugar and fat variety – is a beneficial good, unlike tobacco. It is only the excess consumption of this good that leads to poor outcomes.

Secondly, unlike the flu, personal responsibility plays a huge role in determining whether you will be afflicted or recover from this disease. If you need convincing, click here.