Dr Becca Levy is a Yale professor and the author of the new book Breaking The Age Code, which examines how your beliefs about ageing will determine how long and well you live. Dr Levy found that the more people focused on “positive ageing stereotypes” – wisdom, for example – the better their outcomes were. Levy found that in the 15 per cent of the population that is genetically more susceptible to Alzheimer’s, people with positive age beliefs were 47 per cent less likely to develop dementia than those with negative age beliefs. In other words, it gave them the same risk as someone without the gene.

Ageing is undoubtedly a pain in the behind – and everywhere else, it turns out – but it’s also a massive privilege. Not everyone gets to carry on ageing. A dear friend of mine died in 2019 at the age of 40, leaving two young children behind. Oh, what she would have given to have been able to solve her problems with a hip operation or a few sprays of oestrogen on her wrist once a day. So let’s celebrate getting old(er). Take the hip replacement, the HRT and any other magic potion that is on offer. Treat yourself like the fine wine you are and watch as you improve with age.

Calorie counts are the worst of both worlds

Going out for dinner used to be a treat, but since the introduction of calories on menus, it has turned into something of an ordeal. “Did you know that there are 600 calories in this steak alone?” exclaimed my husband, when we went on a date the other night, “and that’s before I’ve even got to my chips? And as for the béarnaise sauce!” He shook his head sadly.

Then, on a trip to a chain of bakeries, I almost fainted when I learnt that the cinnamon bun I occasionally partake in had 600 calories. I’d always baulked at the price of the coffee – £3.20 for a flat white – but now I wanted to weep at its calorie content as well (210).

It reminded me how incredibly lazy our national approach to obesity is. Simply shoving calories on menus only pushes the problem into different, but just as dangerous areas. Experts in binge eating disorders are clear: if you want to tackle the issue, you need to get to its root – and obsessing over calories is actually the worst thing that sufferers can do, as it gets them trapped in a seemingly never ending cycle of bingeing on food and restricting it. This is the worst of both worlds: it not only shames binge eaters, but actively encourages eating disorders of all types.

Educating people about the addictive quality of processed food would be a more successful way to tackle the obesity crisis, I suspect – but it would no doubt upset the food industry. Still, the sooner we realise that obesity is as much about mental health as it is physical health, the better.