Deborah Ross: The glory days of being fat are definitely over

If you ask me...

If you ask me, although this proposed new "fat tax" has confused many people, I happen to have a razor-sharp mind – the day razor-sharp minds are taxed, I'll be ruined – and so can answer all your questions:

Would you say fat people are the new smokers?

Cameron has said that obesity is "on the verge of overtaking smoking as the biggest health challenge facing Britain" and so, yes, I would say so. Indeed, as it is, I always ask fat people who visit my house if they'd mind being fat down the garden or, if the weather is particularly vile, at least be fat while hanging out the window and wafting their fatness outside. I don't think fat people quite realise how they get right into the carpets, what with such a heavy foot-fall. You can still see the evidence weeks later.

So, the glory days of being fat are over?

Seems like it – plus, in future years, people will look back and find it hard to believe you were once allowed to be fat at your desk, in pubs and on the top deck of the bus. They will watch old movies and marvel: "My God, you were allowed to be fat everywhere! That was the time to be fat!"

Will there be aids to help you give up fat?

Yes, Fatorette patches, which you can plaster over your mouth if you've just passed Boots and Carphone Warehouse and know a Greggs has to be coming up.

Will I be able to eat fat secretly?

You can try, but your "bacon breath" will give the game away, and when you kiss someone they will probably recoil and say: "It's like kissing an abattoir."

But isn't obesity a "disease"?

There is that argument. I know a woman who caught it in the first year of her marriage and whose husband was most unsympathetic until he caught it in the second year, and now their kids have it and so, as a family, all they can do is sit around eating buns. Most tragic.

But haven't studies shown that "healthy" people who live longer actually end up costing the NHS more as they tend to die of the most expensive diseases, like Alzheimer's?

If you are going to ruin all our fun by pointing out where the truth stops and the political agenda begins, we'll thank you to go away. Also, and in case I happen to be pregnant, I'll thank you to not be fat anywhere near me or my unborn child. I'm amazed you even thought it was all right...

d.ross@independent.co.uk