It’s unquestionable.

We in Britain have always laughed at fat ugly Americans, but I’m increasingly noticing that there are an awful lot of Brits waddling through cheap food malls who are a match for many folk in the Mid-West.

And looking through the new fotoLibra Historic Portfolios you can’t help remarking on the almost total absence of very fat people to be seen.

For the last week we’ve been living without central heating, after our 25 year old gas boiler died. We’ve been gathering winter fuel, sawing and chopping logs, wearing lots of clothes and not keeping still for long in case Jack Frost nips us in our buds.

We’ve huddled round the fire in the evening and rediscovered the delights of Hot Buttered Rum.

And I know I’ve lost at least seven pounds. I tend to avoid shopping malls because I don’t want to be lumped in with all the other fatties, but there is today a perceptible lightness in my step.

Looking through those old family photographs on fotoLibra (it’s free — anyone can join and upload as many pre-1980 images as they like) I’m amazed by how slim and trim everyone is.

They didn’t have central heating. If they wanted to get warm, they had to run about. If they wanted a fire, they had to go and find wood, saw it and chop it. I never really understood my father’s saying “The wood you chop yourself warms you twice” before, but oh how true, how true.

The conclusion is obvious. Central Heating Makes You Fat.

Thank heavens the boiler has been replaced and it’s now working again.

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