A GOOD deal of attention is being paid to the health of the nation at the moment. The Food Standards Agency warns us that the unhealthy diet eaten by many will have long-term consequences.

We are told that there is too much fat, sugar and salt in much of our diet. We are also told that we eat too much, with unpleasant consequences for our waistlines.

Many of us, and I am one, struggle, with considerable lack of success to get our weight down. In my case it is not due to eating too much of the wrong sort of food. It is just through eating too much.

We are told that there is an increasing problem, especially among the young, many of whom get little exercise on the sports fields at school. Casual observations support this conclusion.

So what has changed? It does not seem so long ago that overweight children were very much the exception. The danger is that we look back to some golden age. It probably did not seem particularly golden at the time.

It was certainly the case that meals were taken in a much more structured manner. Eating between meals was less frequent and the 'grazing' which is so prevalent now did not occur.

Observation of fast-food outlets of many types makes it clear that the sales are not restricted to traditional meal times. Food is eaten on a whim.

It cannot be a bad thing that the population can afford to eat whenever they like. The problem is that the urge occurs more often than is healthy.

We do not suffer from shortages of food in this country. It is difficult to imagine such a shortage happening, unless severe weather seized up the import of vegetables and stopped them being harvested in this country.

The numerous fast-food outlets, singled out for criticism by the Food Standards Agency, have much for which to answer. They have made cheap convenient food widely available and socially acceptable. Unfortunately, like much processed food, it contains unhealthy amounts of fat and salt.

This is something of a time bomb with which future governments will have to deal. If there are not significant improvements and soon, the beleaguered NHS will be under even more strain.

IT IS the nature of new brooms to sweep clean. This applies as much in the editorial chair of the Evening Press as anywhere else. As part of a revamp of the features pages of this paper, this is the last of these columns I shall be writing. I would like to thank those of you who have written, either in support or not, about the individual views I have expressed.

I would also like to thank those of you who have spoken to me personally in the street or when out at the farmers' markets I attend with my brother. Most of those comments been supportive and I have been grateful for them.

I have greatly enjoyed writing this column. It has been an opportunity to present the rural case as I see it, and to try to make a little clearer the problems facing a long-established industry in a time of transition.

If there has been a theme, it is that if the population wants the countryside looking approximately as it does, then people must buy the output from that countryside, because only profitable business can afford to look after the countryside.

It is early, I know, to be wishing you and yours a Happy Christmas and a peaceful and healthy New Year. In the circumstances I hope that it is forgivable.

Updated: 09:35 Tuesday, December 02, 2003