I have never felt more excited nor more of an irredeemable moral failure than I do right now. Over Christmas, my sister subscribed me to one of the weight-loss drugs currently dominating the diet industry and the headlines.

(If “my sister subscribed me to X” strikes you as a strange formulation, I can only say that it sums up our sororal dynamic perfectly and there’s nothing either of us can do about it now.)

She has been on the same one for a year and has physically transformed. It has been incredible to watch – not just the effectiveness, but the relative painlessness of it compared with traditional efforts to lose weight.

So – here I now am, a couple of injections later, a few pounds lighter and filled with unwanted insights instead of sandwiches and Rich Teas.

I thought I had sidestepped (mostly by virtue of being effortlessly thin until I hit 30) the worst of the body issues that have been a plague on especially the female population ever since we became advanced enough a society to produce surplus calories and choose what to do with them.

But then, what am I to make of........

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