Obesity and lack of exercise are both killers.

A report from the McKinsey Global Institute says being greatly overweight can reduce life expectancy by eight years.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, a Cambridge University study found that lack of exercise is twice as deadly as being fat.

It estimated that while 337,000 deaths among European men and women each year were attributable to obesity, twice this number could be attributed to physical inactivity.

Phew. It makes you think.

Everybody assumes America is the land of the overfed and expanding waistlines that make men, women and children look like walking globes.

But the UK crisis is also acute. We were second, behind Hungary of all nations, in an obesity league table of 30 European nations. One in four adults is classed as obese and the figure is expected to rise to 60% by 2050.

On an island like ours, this could be the tipping point. If all the grossly overweight people in the country went to Blackpool for their holidays in August, 2050, the UK could flip over into the Irish Sea.

You have to laugh. In fact, any sort of exercise should be welcome in the campaign to get people to lose weight and be active. Especially when ambulance services have been buying vehicles big enough to cope with patients up to 70 stone and obesity is said to cost Britain £47 billion a year.

But take a heart. And keep it healthy. Even a brisk 20 minute walk each day can help health dramatically, say the Cambridge experts, burning off around 100 calories and reducing the risk of premature death.

Losing weight may be a more difficult challenge and scientists are actually working on a pill that makes people feel full when they sit down to a meal. It’s aim is to lower cholesterol, suppress the appetite and curb calorie intake.

“This pill is like an imaginary meal,” said Ronald Evans of the Salk Institute in California.

“It sends out the same signals that normally happen when you eat a lot of food.”

Unfortunately, that pill could be some time away.

In the meantime, it’s down to personal choice to cut back on those foods that pile on the pounds and lose weight and hold onto those eight years you might lose.