Legions of chubby folk across planet Earth are desperate for a cure to their corpulence.
They want to be svelte and sophisticated, yet somehow end up being portly and of poor health.
Who can we turn to, to solve such problems?
Scientists - that's who!
Sky TV2s BBC Knowledge channel delves into this difficult issue with The Perfect Diet for You starting on August 4, and The World's Best Diet following up on August 25.
The Perfect Diet for You notes that millions of people around the world are on a diet at any one time.
''Yet the vast majority will fail.''
The three-part BBC Horizon series asks if there is a way to make diets more effective, and whether a better understanding of individual physiology and genetics could be the key.
To find out, it gathered a group of scientists (none of whom were overweight), and 75 quite obese English types to run an experiment.
The experiment begins with a physical and psychological assessment of the 75 volunteers, who struggle with their condition.
''I've been on a diet all my adult life,'' says one.
''I started at 15, now I'm 53,'' says another.
Using the data from their assessments, the scientists (helped by white-coated and latex-gloved assistants, in the best tradition of television science) place the volunteers into groups.
That includes ''feasters'', those with low levels of gut hormone GLP-1, which tells the brain when a person is full.
When feasters start eating, they find it hard to stop.
Another group is emotional eaters, who eat as a coping mechanism when stressed.
The third group is ''constant cravers'' whose genes drive them to eat.
The central theory of the study is the key to weight loss is to know to which group one belongs.
The initial observations of the assessments appear to prove the theories behind the study are correct.
In episode one, the volunteers are sorted into groups, given diets which suit their group, and sent back to their homes for three months to try them out.
If the group manages to lose just 5% of their weight, the United Kingdom will have to carry half a tonne less of humankind.
The World's Best Diet, meanwhile, introduces that other group essential to showing us the way to weight loss - celebrities.
Armed with the information one in four English types are clinically obese, while people are slimmer in other countries, four celebrities I have never heard of go travelling.
They check out raw fish in Japan, the low-carb diet in California, vegetarian curry in India, and the Mediterranean diet in Italy.
They are then challenged to maintain the new diet they bring home to Old Blighty.
Tasty.
- Charles Loughrey
